The Omen Legacy: Armageddon's Children
by JoanMilton
Summary: A companion piece to Omen Legacy and picks up where the last chapter left off. An industrial 'accident' sends Delia and Alexander to an alternative reality where Kate succeeded in murdering Damien Thorn. Not only must the pair save the world from nuclear destruction and deal with Damien's son, they must do so before the world they are trying to save, destroys them first.
1. Twenty Questions

**NOTES**

 **In case some people don't know, before the 1991 Omen television movie, Omen Four: The Awakening, Gordon McGill wrote two books that were direct sequels to The Final Conflict. The first, The Omen Four: Armageddon 2000 was followed by The Omen Five: The Abomination. Though this story deals only with part four, or the first book.**

 **The original plot of the books follows Damien's son as he attempts to destroy the world. Paul runs Thorn and is manipulating the current U.S. Ambassador in order to create a war between the East and the West. He has made the Ambassador's wife a disciple.**

 **I'm not a fan of the books, though they have served as a form of inspiration as to how I didn't want my stories to be...**

 **Also, I apologize if by making this story "M," that everyone thought that it was going to be filled with sex and violence;) This site does a poor job of defining what each rating means, but full on descriptions of sex and violence are MA and are no longer allowed on this site. Hence why this story also exists on Archive of Our Own.**

 **Chapter One—Twenty Questions**

"Is it bigger than a bread box?" Alexander crossed his fingers.

"What? Are you serious? Yes." Delia was sitting on the bed with her back against the headboard.

"Then it must be me."

"It's not _you_ , trust me, I know." Alexander was sitting at the foot of the bed and she picked up a pillow and threw it at him.

"Now that's just deflating to my fragile male ego, Deedle. Your supposed to tell me how I get you all hot and bothered."

She snorted. "Yeah, you're bothering me alright."

"If you don't stop mocking me, I'm taking my ball and going home."

"You are home and I don't think you're going anywhere." She smirked at him. "Besides, you can't leave, there's a game going on. You have two more questions and I can't believe you wasted your third one really asking if a person was bigger than a bread box."

They were playing a game of twenty questions to get their clothes off and they had it made down to their underclothes.

"What if it were a baby, Delia. A baby is smaller than a bread box...maybe?"

"Nice try. You get two more questions. One correct guess..." she held up her index finger to emphasize the simplicity of Alexander's task, "...and I am naked and you can have your way with me. Fail, and you're on your own. You do want me, don't you, Alexander?" She pouted. "I don't think you're trying very hard."

Alexander smiled. "Two more guesses?"

"Yes and the one about it being _you_ doesn't count. I'm generous like that."

"Can I ask a question that's not a guess?"

"Okay."

"There's a real person at the end of it, right?"

"Yes. You know, the more time you take to guess, the less time for us to have screaming sex."

"Shh, I'm thinking." He had closed his eyes and lay down, his arms crossed behind his head.

"Sorry, you need all the help that you can get so..." Delia left him alone and it was five minutes of silence until Alexander sat up, a huge grin on his face.

"I've got it!"

"Okay, who is it?"

"It's you!"

Delia burst into laughter. "I'll take that as an acceptable response. Yay, Xander!"

"Yay me, indeed."

He began making his way to her on all fours and she reached out her right leg, putting it on his shoulder, stopping him.

"There really was someone. Would you still have wanted to have sex if I had pretended?"

Alexander laughed. "Yes, but you would have been a very naughty girl."

"I don't think that's what I would have been."

"No? What do you think that you would have been?"

"I would have been a bitch; aren't I your bitch?"

"Since I'm your dog, I certainly hope so." He kissed her foot. "You know, when animals have sex for breeding reasons there is a word that means that. It begins with a 'c'..."

"That means what?" She batted her eyes at him.

"When animals engage in sexual activity to make other little animals. Do you know that word is?"

Delia giggled. "Yes, I do."

"Good. That's important to keep in mind for later."

"I know two someones who did that to make their little animals."

"Oh? And who would that be?"

"Satan...and Damien."

"Very good, but no going off on a mental tangent and thinking about what father did to her to get us here. This is my show and I'll run it the way that I want."

"For now. I have a naughty idea, Xander."

"I adore it when my sister has naughty ideas."

"Well, what if we had another sister."

"Oh dear God, we'd never leave the house." She had moved her foot from his shoulder and he kept coming towards her. "What if on top of the sex, she had certain...interests that needed to be met by us."

He got to her and straddled her.

"Certain interests like being told what a bad girl she is and having to be spanked?"

"My incredibly naughty sister read my mind."

She pulled him on top of her and leaned over and nibbled his earlobe. "I even have the perfect name."

"And what would that be?"

"Justine."

"It's going to be a long night, Deedle. We may just have to stay up past our bedtime."

She rolled over so that she was on top and leaned down and kissed him.

Alexander's hands moved from her waist, up her back and into her dark locks until his fingers knowingly found his sister's mark beneath her short hair making Delia groan. He pulled his mouth away from hers and smiled. "A very long night, indeed."

 **...666...**

Damien walked into the house and closed and locked the door behind him. "Hello?"

Moments later, Delia's head came out of the study. "No hello."

"No?"

She walked over to her father. "No. You're supposed to be home three hours from now. We were going to have dinner ready, or least on the go, and a drink ready for you...bad Damien." She slapped him on the arm and then threw her arms around him.

"I thought I'd stave off the inevitable pushing, shoving and attempting to lock brothers _inside_ the house to get to me first crap that usually accompanies my return home." He hugged her back.

Damien's dog made his way over to his master and gave Damien a much more reserved welcome than either Delia or Alexander usually received from their dogs.

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about, but I'm glad your home! _Kon'nichiwa_ , Damien-sama, how was the Land of the Rising Sun?"

" _Ohayo_ , Delia-san very good, thank-you."

"Did you do anything else apart from business?"

"Not much...where's Alexander?"

"Oh, sure, where's the boy, nice. Alexander, Damien's home!"

However, Alexander had already known of Damien's arrival and soon he sauntered down the stairs, but came over to his sister, ignoring their father.

"I'm sorry, Delia, you must be mistaken, because father is not supposed to be home for three more hours so we can begin cooking dinner and get a drink ready for him when he walks in the door like the dutiful children that we are."

"Hello to you, too."

Father and son embraced. "Are those going upstairs?" Alexander pointed to Damien's luggage.

"Yes, but don't open anything."

Alexander grabbed Damien's bags and began taking it up to his father's room, which would take more than one trip.

Delia slipped her arm inside her father's and lead him to the family room. Damien sat on the couch and she went to the bar and poured a whiskey for her father. She handed the drink to him and then sat beside him on the sofa. "So, spill, what did you do?"

Damien lifted up the glass to Delia. "Thank-you." He took a drink. "Nothing to tell, really. I didn't do anything exciting, mostly business stuff."

"Anything culturally fun?"

"Visited Mount Fuji, went to a production of _Yoshitsune Senbon Zakura_."

" _Kabuki_ , father, I'm jealous. It wasn't the full production, was it?" Their father had taken them many places, but the Thorn's as a family hadn't yet made it to Japan.

"No, but it was very good. Someone walked on my back."

Delia laughed. "Damien went native. Did it do anything?"

"Not that I could feel, but then, I didn't have a bad back."

They chatted until Alexander came downstairs and took a seat on the other side of of Damien. "So, what did I miss?"

"Father paid a woman for sex."

"Okay, now I know you're making that up. What woman would have to be paid to have sex with Damien Thorn when there are women that would pay _him_ for that privilege?"

"There was no sex and no paying. I said that someone had walked on my back."

Alexander looked at his sister. "Oh, now I get it."

"Get what?" Damien took a drink and looked at his son.

"You went to Japan for weird sex, we understand. But I think that _you_ are ignoring the larger more pressing issue at hand."

"Which would be?"

Delia and Alexander leaped on their father. "Presents!"

"And what makes you think that I would bring back anything for two such ill-behaved teenagers such as yourselves?" Damien handed his glass to Delia, grabbed Alexander and put him in a headlock.

"Please don't cut of the blood flow to his brain. He suffers enough from stupidity, don't exacerbate the problem."

"What's been happening here?" He freed Alexander from the headlock.

"Nothing, we stopped by work nearly everyday."

Damien looked from Alexander to Delia, locking eyes with his daughter. "I thought I told both of you not to do that."

"It wasn't always a full day and there's really nothing you can do about now." Delia smiled at him.

"Uh-huh. So, what are we doing for dinner?"

"Well, if your amenable to the idea, Delia and I want to stay here. I was going to BBQ...steaks, chicken, but if there's something else you want, or if you want to go out..."

Damien took his drink back from Delia and got up. "BBQ sounds excellent." He made his way out into the foyer and to the stairs. "I thought you two wanted presents?"

Delia and Alexander raced past Damien and up to his room and when he got there, both teens were lifting the bags, trying to guess what was inside.

"You know, both of your eighteenth birthdays are in five months. Don't you want to wait until then?"

"I want mine now." With a pout, Delia looked up at her father.

"Delayed gratification is a sign of maturity."

"Is that the line we're supposed to use on potential disciples, father? Follow Satan and become masters of delayed gratification?" Alexander poked the bag with his finger, which was entirely not helpful.

"What I tell them is what I tell them, and what I tell you two is what I tell you two and most times those things are different...smart ass."

Delia, who was now standing on her father's bed, jumped in the air and landed on her back. "I want presents!"

Damien opened the largest suitcase and pulled out a box and handed it to Delia. "That's for you." He also handed a box to Alexander.

Delia sat up and carefully opened the box and brought out what was inside. "It's a _yukata_! It's beautiful." She looked over at Alexander, who had removed his _yukata_ from the box. Hers was turquoise and decorated with a large cherry blossom tree on the back, while Alexander's was plain navy blue.

"There are shoes in one of the other suitcases. When I get to them, you'll get them."

" _Domo arigato_ , Damien-sama." Alexander bowed to his father.

"My pleasure." Damien also gave each of the children _Noh_ masks representing demons.

"Subtle, father." Delia held hers up against her face.

"I thought you two might like those. Now there's one more present that I will save for your birthdays, but I saw these and I couldn't resist." Damien handed figurines to his children.

"Daddy, it's Godzilla!" Delia and Alexander turned their figurines on each other, each Godzilla trying to defeat the other. Damien held out the third one and the children laughed.

"I'll keep mine here on my desk in the study."

"What about Cecile?" Alexander conceded defeat to his sister's Godzilla.

"I had Cecile's _kimono_ sent directly to her house so she didn't have to wait for it and I got her an _ochoko_ set, which I will give to her tomorrow, and a bottle of _sake_."

"Can we help you with anything?"

"I had my laundry and dry cleaning done before I left so I'll just put all of my stuff away, but thank-you." Damien smiled at Alexander.

"Is our other present in here?" As her brother had done earlier, Delia poked a bag with her finger to see if she could figure out what was inside, but it was as unhelpful for her as it had been for Alexander.

"No."

"Or are you just saying that so we won't look?" She raised a suspicious eyebrow at her father.

"Take your pick. Okay, let me unpack please and I want to go up to the chapel, so I'll be downstairs when I'm downstairs."

 **...666...**

Delia and Alexander were in the kitchen preparing dinner when Damien eventually came down and took a seat at the island that divided the kitchen area from the seating area. "Need help?"

"Don't be silly, father. Why don't you go watch television, or read? Did you want something to hold you over until dinner?"

She came over to him, and he put his arm around his daughter's waist. "A sandwich would be nice, but I'll stay here and spend some time with you two since I haven't seen you in over a week."

Alexander went to work putting together a sandwich for his father and added some carrot sticks and chips to the plate and handed it to Damien, followed by a bottle of beer.

"Thank-you...so anything else happen while I was away?"

"Just a whole lot of nothing." Delia stole a carrot from her father's plate and gave it a chomp.

"I don't know whether to feel threatened or reassured that my children did so well taking care of things while I was away." With a smile, he took a bite of his sandwich.

She punched her father's arm. "Considering that I will be running Thornone day, I hope you feel reassured. And just between us, there wasn't really anything that needed taking care of.

"We were kinda disappointed there wasn't an actual emergency so that we could have sprung into action like a well-oiled machine." Alexander rubbed some spices into the steaks.

"Well I'm glad that there was no crisis, not the least of which I wouldn't have wanted to be on the other side of the world while you were here. But I like that you have that kind of faith in your abilities...and I'm very reassured that my business will be going into very good hands, one day."

Delia beamed at the compliment and continued to help her brother with dinner.

 **...666...**

Once dinner was ready, they ate in the kitchen where they pulled some more detail from their father about his trip. Besides the _sake_ for Cecile, Damien had brought some home for himself and Delia and Alexander both enjoyed a small glass with their meal.

After the dinner, the left overs were put away and the dishes were done, the three of them went into the family room and watched a movie, after which Damien said he was tired and everyone went up to get ready for bed.

Once Delia and Alexander had gone through their bedtime routines, they both went back down stairs to their father's room. There, they found Damien in his pyjamas and sitting and reading in bed.

"We just came in to say good night and to say that we're glad that you're back home." Alexander sat on his father's bed. It would have been next to impossible for anything to have happened to Damien while he had been gone, but Alexander felt relief that his father had made it back safe and sound. "I guess we're still the weird kids who like spending time with their dad."

"I'm glad you're the weird kids who like spending time with their dad, otherwise he'd get lonely."

"Goodnight, I'll see you at breakfast."

"I'm looking forward to Cecile's cooking. Goodnight, most annoying child."

Alexander got up and stuck his finger in Delia's face. "Most annoying. Take that."

"Oh please, I could be way more annoying if I wanted to be." She knocked her brother's finger away from her face.

"I'd like to talk to my daughter, please."

Alexander bowed to his father and left. Damien moved his reports and Delia carefully jumped onto the bed beside her father, who put his arm around Delia's neck and gave a playful squeeze. "Does it bother you that I'm still physical with Alexander?"

"I understand. It's not the same as when we were little and you would wrestle with us on the floor. I'm a 'woman' now, it's different."

Damien smiled. "Thank-you for explaining it to me, but that's not what I asked. I asked you if it bothers you."

She shrugged. "A little."

"I don't treat you differently, do I?"

"No, it's just..." Delia shrugged again.

"Tell you what, for the rest of the summer, I am going to think of something that we can do together that's physical, that's not the old standby of horse back riding."

"You don't have to do that."

"Yes, I do, I'll think of something, okay?"

"Okay." She smiled at him.

Damien tightened the gripped around Delia's neck and her elbow came back, attempting to hit her father, but he moved out of the way. "There's the other reason I don't wrestle with you. I'm less likely to get a black-eye, broken ribs or a bruised kidney from Alexander than from you, but that's okay, I like that my daughter can take care of herself, in more ways than one." Damien kissed the top of Delia's head.

"Why do they call it horse _back_ riding, anyway?" She sat up.

"Goodnight, Delia." Damien put a hand on her back and pushed her up and she stood.

"You can hardly ride the horse anywhere else."

"Go."

"It seems like a bit of redundancy, name wise."

"Good night, most, most annoying child."

Delia hugged her father. "Good night, I'm glad your home."

Damien hugged her back. "I am too."

"You know, I'd be far less annoying if I knew what my other present was." She had made her way to the door and now had her hand on the doorknob.

"Delia, if I have to throw this pillow, you'll get nothing."

"I think you mean if I have to throw this pillow, you won't get...okay, I'm going." She left her father's room and went down the hall, turned the corner and there, sitting on the stairs, was Alexander.

"An escort, how thoughtful." Delia walked up two stairs, turned and then leaned against the wall.

"Tired?"

"Maybe." Delia made a face.

"What?"

"I guess I never noticed that before." She jutted out her chin in the direction of the hall and Alexander turned around and Delia took off up the stairs, two at a time. It took only a moment until he ran up the stairs after her and he grabbed her and moved her out of the way just as she was about to step foot at the top of the landing.

"I win!"

"Sir, I would have beaten you to the top of the stairs, but I was momentarily overcome by a case of the vapours." Delia had responded to Alexander in a fake southern accent and was now fanning herself with an invisible fan.

"Well, now, _Madame_ , I happen to be an expert on the vapours and I think you'll find that if we retire to my boudoir, I'll be able to better diagnose the problem and prescribe an agreeable solution." He had likewise responded with a southern accent and took Delia's hand and lead her to his bedroom.

 **...666...**

Alexander watched as Delia put on a t-shirt and slipped on a pair of panties. She then sat on the side of the bed, staring out across the bedroom. He had been laying down, but now he got up and knelt behind her and kissed her shoulder. "Penny for your thoughts, _Madame_."

"That's pretty low ball for our family, _Chevalier_."

He laughed. "A million dollars for thoughts, then."

"More like nine months."

"Delia..."

"But _I_ want you to. _I_ want to." She turned and looked at him.

"Delia, you know that if it were up to me, you'd be pregnant right now."

He'd be Antichrist one day, and President of the United States, but it's not what he cared about, or what he truly wanted. All he wanted was to be Delia's husband and father to their children. How simple their existences would be if they could be jackals living in Africa somewhere, raising their pups and hunting for their meals. He smiled. He was plenty happy being two-legged jackals with her.

"Right now?"

"After what we just did, you bet."

She smiled. "And how would you have known that I could have a baby?"

"Because, I'd know, like you'd know; I'd feel it. It would be such a turn-on for you to be pregnant. He kissed her. "How many children this time, Deedle?" He whispered in her ear.

"I still like nine."

"Five girls and four boys?"

"Yes."

"And still the same names?"

"Yes."

"You'd have great big pregnant belly and be able to feed our children...you'd be so beautiful." He gently bit her shoulder.

"I want children. It's what I want more than anything. Do you understand that?"

"Nope. I'd be just the father. I don't dare to presume that I understand anything about your desire to have children."

"I'm happy for you, that you get to have a baby. I really am." And she let him know that she indeed held no rancour in her heart for the fact that he would get to be a dad one day...just not with her.

"Delia, this _will_ be _our_ baby, no matter who has it. It'll have our genetics. He or she will be like us."

"I know. I used to want to work at Thorn more than anything and don't get me wrong, I can't wait until I walk in there as a paid employee, but...I'd give it all up to be a mommy...and stay home and look after our children. No human hand would touch our babies. Why haven't I gotten a visit from my monthly friend?"

"I don't know."

"I am thankful for our life...for Damien...we very nearly didn't have a father."

"I know and I'm thankful too."

"I'm not sorry, Xander, for the baby talk." She looked him in the eyes.

"I'm not either." He kissed her. "But if it ever gets to be too much, you tell me and it stops."

"I will." She yawned.

"I hear that. Full bellies, sexually sated, temporarily anyways, and the poppa jackal home in his den with his pups...all is right with the world."

Delia laughed. "Our world, anyway."

"We've been having sex for only a week, but it somehow feels both longer and shorter."

She shrugged. "I don't think that's strange. We've known each other our whole lives, and we know each other so well, but sex is new, so it can seem like we've both been doing it for a long time and not so much a long time."

"And everything is still copacetic?"

"Have I given you reason to think that there was something wrong?" Delia raised an eyebrow.

"No and I'm not trying to weasel a compliment out of you, either. You have been more than forthcoming with the compliments, but I just wanted to make sure that everything was good. Given that Damien is home, everything is bound to be less frequent so I just thought that now would be a good time to check in...again."

"Everything is still very good. If there were something wrong, I would tell you."

"I hope so, but I don't just mean if there's something wrong, but I've done what you've wanted me to do? You haven't held anything back?"

"Xander, we've only just started having sex so yes there are things I've held back. We have a very long time to do what we want to do."

"And you'll tell me...what ever it is that you want?"

"Of course, we tell each other everything, why would this be any different?"

"Good, I want to make you happy. I don't think that much has changed since we were kids, only how I make you happy." He smiled at her.

"I know I've said it before, but I like the new game the pups get to play."

"As do I and we have been waiting to play it for a _long_ time."

They got settled into bed and Alexander shut off the light and held her tightly against him.

"Xander, I have a request."

He rubbed his hands together. "I like those. Give it to me."

"I want to fall asleep just like this."

Alexander kissed Delia's temple and his hands went in her hair and found her mark, making her sigh contentedly. "Delicate Delia. However, I think I get away with that only in the afterglow of love making."

"You can say that to me whenever you want, just not out in public. I have a corporate image to cultivate."

Alexander laughed. "Deal."

She closed her eyes, relaxed and no longer fought her tiredness. "I love Nander, always and forever."

"I love Dee-lee-lee-ah, forever and always."

The two of them sought out each other's relaxed state and soon, wrapped in each other's arms, they fell asleep.


	2. History Repeating Itself

**Chapter Two—History repeating itself**

Delia came down the stairs feel fantastic. She had lingered under the hot water as Alexander had his way with her and then he had shampooed her hair, which had put her in the mood again. She had also hidden Alexander's _geta._ Life was good. She was smiling when she found Cecile in the kitchen, but there wasn't anybody at the kitchen table.

" _Bonjour_ , _Cecile_ , _o_ _ù est mon père_?"

" _Dans la salle à manger."_

Delia reached out to her father...Thomas was there also. "So, how do you like your _kimono_?"

"It's gorgeous. I tried it on and it fits."

"Good, and the _sake_?"

"I might have to taste test that at lunch...to make sure."

"If I'm here, I might join you." Delia made her way into the dining room. "Morning Thomas, here to join the Thorn's for brekkers?"

"Good morning to you, Delia. Yes, it's been a while so I thought I'd come by and grace you with my presence."

"Good morning, father." She sat on Damien's right.

"Morning, Delia." Damien had his face hidden behind the morning edition of the paper.

Ten minutes later, Alexander poked his head through the dining room door. "Here you are." He came in and took his regular seat to the left of Damien.

"Damn, he found us." Delia shook her head.

Damien put down his paper. "Morning, Alexander."

"Morning." He smiled at Damien and then let the smile fall from his face. "Okay, that's enough of trying to impress the company. Father, will you please speak to _your_ daughter about hiding things that don't belong to her?"

"Such as?"

"Such as the _geta_ for my _yukata_. I left them on the bed and now they're gone."

"It's easter, Alexander, and I'm the easter bunny. I've hidden your shoes and you have to find them."

"It's July, Delia, and how would you like it if I pretended to be the easter bunny and went into your room and hid your shoes?"

"Do it and see what happens."

Cecile came out with Delia's breakfast and handed it to her, a steak smothered with mushrooms.

"Hey, is there more of that?" Thomas pointed to her plate.

"There was only one steak from last night, but you can have it." She held out the plate to Thomas, who shook his head. "I haven't touched it...it's okay."

"No..."

Cecile took the plate and handed it to him, but it was Delia who spoke. "Just so you know, Cecile dislikes a disagreeable meal table. Take the plate, or she'll ask you to leave." Delia nodded to Thomas to take the plate, which he did. "She'll bring out eggs and potatoes, so you can have that, too. Cecile, can I have two BLTs instead?"

"Of course."

"Thank-you, Delia."

"No problemo." She smiled at Thomas.

"Not to look a gift you in the mouth, but what brings you here?" Alexander had grabbed a section of the paper while he waited for his breakfast.

Thomas laughed. "I'm not enough, huh? Well, something unexpected came up at work today, so I'm here to take your father downtown and you both will be going elsewhere."

Damien looked over at his children. "Thought you two might like to do the unofficial official Thorn walk-through at the plant."

Alexander put down the paper and sat up straight, a huge grin on his face. "Really?"

"Don't get too excited. It's all had the official inspection. Normally, I like to go and get a first hand account. It's all purely ceremonial at this point, but I always feel that a Thorn should be there at the unveiling as it were. Elias will meet you before you go in and he'll be waiting at the other end. I _could_ give you both a report to read to find out what's been done, but this way you can go and see it for yourself and offer our congratulations and thanks to Elias Michaels for a job well done." Damien took a drink of coffee.

The grin had not disappeared from Alexander's face. This was the first time that either he or his sister would be representing their father at anything. Shower sex with Delia had been great, that had already put him in a brilliant mood, now this news had only added to the self-satisfied feeling spreading through him. If there was time, he just might have three helpings of everything at breakfast.

Alexander then looked over at his sister and stifled a smile: on Delia's face sat a look of absolute horror.

"What's wrong?" Thomas looked at Delia, a forkful of steak about to go into his mouth.

There was too much wrong for Delia to vocalize. She didn't have the report that would be on Damien's desk waiting for him when he got to his office this morning. She hadn't stopped in to the office yesterday before Damien had come home, so she hadn't gotten a chance to pick it up. She wasn't dressed to be representing the family at a picnic let alone going to one of the plants. She stood up so suddenly, she hit the table, rattling everyone's plates and glasses.

"Delia..." Damien looked up at his daughter.

Alexander couldn't help it and began shaking with laughter.

Frustrated, she turned to her father. "Why didn't you have the report sent here this morning? I haven't read it and I've got to go and change."

"Delia, sit, now."

Cecile returned with the rest of the food, put it on the table and left and everyone but Delia tucked in.

She picked up her napkin and threw it at her brother. "You always think shit like this is funny. Think it's funny to embarrass your family in front of the people who work for us?"

"Right now, I think _you're_ funny." He put a forkful of potatoes in his mouth.

Cecile eventually came back with two sandwiches for Delia.

"Thank-you," Delia mumbled as she sat back, allowing Cecile to place the plate on the table.

"You're welcome and that was a very nice thing you did." She turned to leave.

"Will you please bring Delia some yogurt and fruit and something to drink which, if she doesn't start acting her age, will be served to her in a sippy cup."

Cecile left to get more food for Delia.

"Okay, if you don't stop, irreparable damage will be done to mine and Delia's relationship."

"Is that before or after I beat you to death with a hammer?"

Alexander merely smiled at her and continued eating.

Cecile returned with Delia's food items and then left; she thoughtfully hadn't put Delia's cola in a toddler's cup.

"You will eat everything on your plate. You will take your time and you will engage in civilized conversation with your family and your guest. Right now, you're the one embarrassing yourself in front of someone who works for us."

"Enjoying breakfast?" Alexander smiled at the man sitting on his right.

"Oh, don't you worry about me, I feel right at home." Thomas took a sip of coffee.

"Sorry, Thomas." Her apology was sincere as she looked at him.

"It's all good, Delia. This isn't even one of your more...amusing outbursts."

"Oh, please don't. I'll either not have a sister at the end of this meal, or she'll try to kill me, so please keep it to yourself...for now." Alexander attempted to put the kibosh on Thomas sharing whatever amusing anecdote he had about Delia and instead, rang the bell to summon Cecile so he could get seconds.

Breakfast finished without anymore interruptions and they all made their way into the foyer.

"May I _please_ change? I promise I'll be quick." She crossed her heart and did the three-fingered scout salute.

"You have ten minutes."

Delia bolted up the stairs and Alexander sighed, turned and trudged up the stairs after her.

"Where are _you_ going?"

"Well, you don't think she'll be happy with what I'm wearing, do you?"

There hadn't been anything wrong with either had had on, but they came down in fresh clothing, Alexander in a suit and tie and Delia in slacks and a blouse with a briefcase to boot.

"Is there _anything_ for me to read?"

Damien, who had brought the newspaper with him from the dining room, handed it to her, a wicked smile on his face.

"Damien..." Her eyes narrowed to slits.

"You'll have fifteen minutes before the walk-through starts to read the brief, which is plenty of time. I'll bring home the longer version and you can read it tonight. These people know how to do their jobs, they don't need smart-ass remarks and ten thousand questions to make them feel like they're under being micromanaged. If you see anything that seems off, talk to Elias. Ask about things if you're curious, but they have jobs to do and they're not there to take you on a sightseeing tour right now; am I making myself clear?"

Both Thorn teens nodded.

Damien smiled. "This will all be fine, so have fun"

Delia relaxed and lowered her shoulders, which were in danger of becoming part of her ears.

"I love you." He hugged and kissed her.

"What about me?" Alexander made fish lips at his father.

Damien one-arm hugged his son, but refrained from kissing him.

"Is it me?" Alexander breathed into his hand and smelled. "Nope, still minty fresh."

"I love you, too. I'll be busy, so the two of you will have to do lunch on your own."

"We'll see you tonight and we'll fill you in on all the details." She was all business, wanting to let her father know that she would be paying attention and that what they knew, he'd know.

"Oh, I don't doubt that for one second, Delia." Even Damien couldn't resist teasing her.

Outside, was a second car with a driver waiting to take Delia and Alexander out into the wilds of Illinois, outside the city where Thorn's second largest industrial plant was located.

"See you tonight." Damien waved to his children, they waved back and both he and Thomas got into the other car and in moments, it was headed out of the gates.

The driver of Delia and Alexander's car stood by the door to open it, but Alexander shook his head and the driver got into the car.

"After you." Alexander stood beside the back door, directly behind the driver. He found the handle for the door and opened it for his sister.

She stood there, gazing out over the front lawn. She had, of course, very quickly gotten over their disagreement, and he knew that, but she wasn't ready just yet to drop the pretence. She looked at her watch and got into the car.

Alexander gingerly closed her car door and dashed around the other side, jumped in and the driver took off.

It took them about an hour and a half to make the drive from their home to the Thorn Industrial Park located in the neighboring county and during that time, they had ridden in silence, neither speaking to the other, but Alexander had sent more than occasional reassuring feeling her way.

Outside of the car was warm and it was shaping up to be a scorcher. Alexander pulled his sister aside, away from the large glass doors and windows of the entrance of the building where they had more privacy.

"Am I forgiven?"

Delia only shrugged.

"You know, you're very sexy when you're in full Thorn mode."

"Am I?" There was more than a little haughtiness in her response.

"Very. I think I'd like, when we're done here, to take you back to the house, send Cecile home early, and take you right in the kitchen."

She turned her head towards him. "That's against the rules."

"What Damien doesn't know won't hurt him. I will then make something delicious for us to enjoy for lunch. After, I will take you upstairs and make you scream loud enough for the people doing the construction on our homes to hear you."

"Yeah, but they're not that far from the house, so, it wouldn't be all that impressive, you know, whatever it is that you're planning to do to me."

"We'll see." He smiled. "If I knew this was going to happen today, I would have been more supportive in the shower."

She smiled back, unable to fake being angry at him any longer. "You were plenty supportive in the shower."

"Delia, don't sweat this, okay? We've got this. I can think of more enjoyable ways to make you...uncomfortable."

"Sounds fun." She sent warm, lustful feelings his way. "Okay, let's do this." She exhaled loudly and they made their way to the entrance.

But as certain as Delia had sounded, Alexander could feel her trepidation. "How do you know there's an elephant in your fridge?"

"How?"

"Foot prints in the Jell-O. What time is it when an elephant sits on your fence?"

"I don't know. What time is it when an elephant sits on your fence?"

"Time to get a new fence."

"I love you, annoying one."

"I love you, nagging one." His hand was on the handle of the door. "Let's go make Damien proud." He pulled open the door and was greeted by a blast of air-conditioned comfort.

Three people were waiting for them in the tastefully designed foyer. The one they knew smiled broadly at them.

"This can't possibly be Alexander and Delia." He reached out his hand and Alexander got to him first.

"In the flesh." Alexander smiled back.

"The last time I saw the both of you, you were in the throes of high school."

"Time flies." It was Delia's turn to shake his hand.

"Damien said that there was a brief of some kind?" Alexander turned to one of the other three, who had file folders in her hand.

"This is Jennifer Beauchamp," Elias introduced her as she handed the files to Alexander, who passed one of them on to his sister.

"Do you need anything else? Coffee? Water?" Elias looked from one Thorn to the other.

"I'll take a coffee, extra cream and sugar and Delia will take a cola of some kind." Alexander was flipping through the sheets of paper.

One of the other three of the team, a young Asian man, laughed. "Another member of the early morning alternative caffeine intake society."

Delia laughed. "We need a secret handshake." She couldn't think of anything else, so she threw him a shaka sign, which he returned.

"Okay, I'll meet you both two hours from now at the end of the line. Please don't hesitate to ask about anything along the way."

Both Thorns said goodbye to Elias and Jennifer cleared her throat.

"If you'll follow me." She smiled and lead the way down the hall to a door and down two flights of stairs. She opened the door and they walked down a short hallway. Jennifer opened another door and the Thorns found themselves in a break room.

"You can sit and read the brief in here and in about fifteen minutes, someone will come and get you and we can do the tour." Jennifer left just as the young Asian man came back with the Thorn's beverages.

Delia took her cola and looked at his name tag; Stephen Chang was emblazoned across the small brass plate next to the Thorn Industries logo.

Stephen handed the coffee to Alexander, who thanked him in Mandarin.

The man responded in Mandarin and then laughed. "You're pretty good."

Delia beamed. "He's the polyglot in the family. He can speak six languages fluently, knows a handful of other's and he's currently working on Hindi."

Stephen had been more than happy to be helpful to the Thorns, but Alexander's use of his native tongue had made even more eager to please; both Delia and Alexander could feel it coming off of him in waves.

"I'll be back." He smiled at both of them and left.

Delia and Alexander read the brief and he looked over at his sister. She had thrown pencils and two different colored highlighters into her briefcase and was using them now as she was taking note of something in the report that had caught her attention. Alexander smiled; he was already looking forward to what happened when they got home.

Fifteen minutes later, as promised, Stephen returned and lead the Thorns into a change room where they were handed lab coats, eye protection and two name tags on strings.

"Not very dignified, I know." Jennifer laughed.

"Shall we?" Glenn held the door open for the Thorns and the tour got under way.

 **...666...**

Alexander looked down at the growing list of questions and jottings that he would ask Elias about once they got to the end of the "inspection."

He looked ahead at his sister and Jennifer. The walk-through had turned into something much more informal than had Damien been there. He found himself naturally drawn to Stephen, so they had paired off, while Delia had been, by default, left with Jennifer.

Alexander jotted down something else that Stephen had mentioned and he smirked when he looked up again at his sister... _you're not the only one who can pay attention_.

"And here we are...just when you thought the fun wouldn't stop." Jennifer had stopped them in the last section of the working part of the plant before they would end up in Elias Micheal's office.

"Excuse me." Stephen smiled at Alexander and then went to Jennifer to talk to her about something.

When Delia came over to her brother, he shoved the papers in her face. "Take that, anal retentive nut job."

She took a quick look at what he had written and she smiled at him and spoke in a low voice, "You've been very professional while we've been here. Nary a smart comment to be found and now notes. I may just have to let you break the rules, kitchen wise, when we get back home."

"I'm holding you to that."

Jennifer had made a move to open the door leading out into the room where the Thorns would removed their coats, goggles and name tags when...both of them felt something and a second later, a klaxon began blaring and the locks on the doors clicked shut and then suddenly the room got dark as yellowish green noxious clouds suddenly began billowing out.

One minute, Delia could see Alexander standing there, the next minute she couldn't. She reached out for him, but she couldn't grab him.

"Xander, where are you?!"

"Here!"

"Where!?"

"Here!" 

But Delia couldn't tell where he here was. She was now completely unable to see anything. The chlorine dioxide that was filling the room was having little effect on her, but she knew that the screams she was hearing where the sounds of Stephen and Jennifer dying.

"Delia!"

But he sounded so far away and then, Delia felt... _something_ again and then...she was empty, alone, wrong, off-balance and then realized that for the first time in her life, she was alone inside her own head. This wasn't like when Alexander had been taken. Then he had felt fuzzy and muffled; now he was just gone.

Delia began flailing her arms wildly trying to find him and blind panic had overwhelmed her and what was worse, she couldn't think because someone was hysterically screaming...until she realized that it was she who was doing the screaming.

The room kept growing darker and Delia sunk to her knees and collapsed to the floor. She was beyond the ability to feel anything, or to care about what was going on. Her brother was dead; Delia no longer wanted to live.

"Alexander." She closed her eyes and let the darkness take her.


	3. Mirror, Mirror

**Chapter Three—Mirror, Mirror**

Before she even opened her eyes, she could feel the familiar sensation of a presence inside her mind and she was flooded with relief.

"Nander!?"

He opened his eyes and blinked and then he could breathe again because once more, he could feel his sister.

"Deedle!" He rolled over onto his stomach and there she was, splayed on the floor on her back. He got up, stumbled over to her and fell more than sat beside her.

"Alexander!" She sat up and collapsed against him.

"Oh, thank Satan! Oh God, I thought you were dead! I couldn't feel you anymore and I just wanted to curl up and die." He gave her a squeeze and then pulled away and looked at her.

She leaned over and put her forehead against his and the two of them sat there, breathing in the other until they felt okay enough to pull away.

"Xander, I'm not so sure we aren't dead."

He reached down and grabbed his sister's wrist and could feel her pulse. "I don't know, that's an awful lot of heart activity for someone who ain't dead."

"What happened?"

He gave a shaky laugh. "You mean apart from the industrial accident we were just in?"

"Did you feel something? Like... _something_?" She turned to him.

He nodded. "Twice. Once just before it started and the second time was moments before I couldn't feel you."

"That was the same for me as well."

Alexander wobbled to his feet and then extended his hand to his sister, who likewise was unsteady once she got up. As he stood there holding onto his sister, he looked around the room and he frowned.

"Uh, Delia, this isn't the same room we were in. And why does this place look like there hasn't been anybody in here for years?"

Delia followed her brother's lead and looked around; he was right, this wasn't the same room they had been standing in when the accident had occurred. The other room had been larger, and had more of an industrial feel to it. This room was smaller and looked like it had been a laboratory at one time; cabinets and tables that Delia and Alexander recognized from every science class that they had taken in high school decorated the room instead of pipes and vents. Not only that, but if it wasn't broken, cracked or dismantled, it was covered with dust or rusted.

"Delia, here's a wacky suggestion: let's get the fuck out of here."

"Yeah, I think that qualifies as a plan...and I wanna see Damien." She made her way to the what should have been the door of the room, but the entry way had no door.

Alexander followed his sister and stepped out into the hallway. "Okay, this isn't funny anymore."

The hall was just as different as the room had been.

"Which way first?"

"This way." Alexander turned to his right and the two of them began trying to find their way out.

As they made their way through the building, they realized that all the entrances leading into rooms had had their doors removed, as well as the doors leading to the stairwells. They both knew that this was done to prevent people from squatting in the abandoned building, but it was also making find the exit easier since none of the doors had to be pulled open.

After some backtracking and frustration, Delia finally spotted the entrance/exit of the building. "Here."

"Let's go."

They made their way down the hall towards the front door. From what they could see, the foyer hadn't been as ornate as the other one had been and it was much smaller.

"I want to see Damien so we can find out what the hell is going on."

Delia could feel Alexander and knew that wanting their father had less to do with a need to inform Damien of the catastrophe that had befallen both them and their plant, and more to do with wanting to see him because Alexander was as scared as Delia was.

The pair no more stepped into the foyer when they became aware of someone behind them just before he spoke.

"Can I help you?"

Delia and Alexander turned to find themselves looking at a middle-aged security guard.

"This is private property. Why are you here?"

"We want to see Damien Thorn." Alexander stepped forward and had made the demand using all the authority he could muster, which under normal circumstances would have gotten him exactly what he wanted.

However, these weren't normal circumstances. At the mention of Damien's name, the guard's eyes narrowed and both could feel a change in the man; mentioning Damien had been a bad idea.

Alexander locked eyes with the guard, who had his hand on his walkie-talkie by this point.

Since the kidnapping incident which had triggered his connection to the supernatural part of himself, Alexander had spent many, many hours practising with his father, honing his ability to kill using only his mind. He had stuck to ravens after finding out that it had been what Damien had used when he had been Alexander's age; it had made him feel closer to his father.

The security guard became aware of a large black cloud moving at an alarming rate towards the front doors of the building. He took out his baton just as the black cloud smashed through the plate glass window. The cloud was a living mass of black wings and sharp beaks that set themselves on the man just as he turned to run down the hallway in the opposite direction. The ravens tore at the man, ripping at his flesh and scalp.

When Alexander opened his eyes, the security guard was an unmoving, unbreathing lump on the floor.

While her brother was killing the security guard, Delia was surveying the outside. One lone car, no doubt belonging to the security guard, sat in the first row of the parking lot whose white lines were barely visible after years of neglect.

They needed to get rid of him. Delia wasn't sure how often the building got checked, but she didn't want to stick around to find out. Without turning around, Delia knew her brother was done and that the man was dead.

"Pull the car up to the front door."

Alexander rifled through the man's pockets, found his keys and went out to get the car.

Delia came over to the man, knelt and took out the man's wallet; he had a hundred and fifty dollars in twenties and other small bills which she took and put into her jacket pocket since whatever had happened, her briefcase hadn't followed her.

Alexander came back, propped the door open with one of his shoes and he and Delia, with much grunting and heavy breathing, brought the man out to his car, dumped him in the trunk and closed the lid.

They went back inside the foyer and looked around. There was no blood on the floor and nothing to look like anyone had been killed.

They made their way to the door, where Alexander retrieved his shoe, locked the door, got in the car and began the drive into what they hoped was Chicago and once he made it onto the highway, he looked for a posted speed limit sign. He did not want to be caught speeding for many reasons, not least of which was the dead body in the trunk.

As Alexander drove, Delia looked around. Thankfully, they were indeed still in Chicago, she could make out Willis Tower, John Hancock Center and Water Tower Place, and she turned away once she was satisfied that she still in the Windy City, but she quickly turned her head back towards the Chicago skyline.

There were a few buildings missing, namely the Bloomingdale's Building.

Delia blinked, as if somehow she had missed the huge edifices, but they weren't there. The fear that she was feeling had just been ratcheted up a few notches and the lack of the building at 900 North Michigan filled Delia with a strange longing.

When Delia had informed Anna that it was time to buy her first bra, she had made a day of it. First, she had taken Delia out to high tea at the Drake Hotel. Delia had felt silly at first, after all, it was just a bra, but she had enjoyed the tea and finger sandwiches. Then they had gone to Bloomingdale's to buy Delia something simple after she had informed Anna that she didn't want any fancy lace under things. They had not been the only women in there that afternoon who were there making momentous purchases. While they waited for the saleswoman to help, Delia watched tearful mothers pay for their daughter's first bras and for the first time in her life, she appreciated her lack of a female parent.

Anna had driven her home and brought her up to the door and had told Delia that she was sorry that it had been she and not Delia's mother who had ushered her through this particular right of female passage. Anna had asked her if the experience had been satisfactory, she had pretty much copied what her own mother had done for her, and Delia had said yes. Later, she had gone upstairs and had made Anna a very lovely card thanking her for the day and saying that she had very much enjoyed it.

As Delia looked at the gaping hole, for as yet, no other building had gone up, she wondered what else was missing and was different.

"What is it?" Alexander had felt her sudden shift in her mood.

She turned to him. "I think we'd better be prepared for some freaky shit."

He did not respond, but instead, reached down and turned on the car radio.

"And we turn now to the continuing crisis in the Middle-East. Another series of bombings rocked the city of Tel Aviv yesterday increasing worries over the success of the upcoming peace talks between Israel and the Arab states..."

"Delia, we need to get rid of this car. We can't pull up in front of the Thorn Building with a dead body in the trunk."

It didn't take her long until she spotted a shopping mall and she tapped him on the shoulder and pointed.

Alexander found the off ramp and made his way to the shopping mall. It wasn't very busy and he drove around back of the building and the two of them simply got out of the car and walked away.

They walked through the mall to the front entrance where they found cabs and grabbed one and told the driver to take them to the Thorn Building.

Delia was aware of Alexander talking to the cabbie as she looked at the passing cars. She frowned. They looked different. Since they were in the city, they stopped at traffic lights and Delia observed the people crossing the street. There was something off about the men's suits, not to mention that the ties were wide enough to use as surfboards. The woman had big hair and horrible looking dresses made with enough nylon to catch on fire if they were put under a hot light bulb. Delia tuned into the conversation that Alexander was having with the driver.

"Yeah, real shame about what's happenin' though. I was alive during the Cuban missile crisis and I thought I was gonna meet my maker before I turned twenty...and here we are again. If it ain't us and the Russians, it's the Middle-East."

The cab pulled up across the street from the building and neither Thorn felt any remorse about making the driver believe that he had been paid when he really hadn't.

Alexander looked around and watched the men and women as they walked passed. The cars looked different, boxier and the fashions looked outdated, like someone had vomited up the early 1980s. His eyes widened with disbelief as two women walked passed wearing legwarmers.

Alexander turned to his sister. She was leaning against a car studying the front of the building. He didn't talk to her. He could feel confusion, fear, and an overwhelming desire to see their father and seemingly, she had had enough of observing from the outside and now wanted in the building, so the two of them made their way across the street.

As she crossed the street with Alexander, she took note of the entrance...small, with a revolving door. Both of them pause before entering and stared first at the brass plaque on the building: it said Thorn Corporation. Next, they took note of the logo, the planet Earth shaped like the letter T. They looked at each other. While Alexander didn't know as much as Delia about the building and its history, he knew the logo that he had seen hundreds of times and this wasn't it.

Delia put her hand on the glass of the revolving door and pushed and the two of them shuffled into the lobby of Thorn Industries, or in this case, Thorn Corporation. The two of them stood there gawking and must have looked like rubes come in from the country who had never seen a building bigger than ma and pa's general store.

The door had been the start. Damien had had the revolving door replaced by two separate doors, one for an exit, the other for an entrance. She wondered if there was the executive entrance and exit on the other side of the building. There were cameras, but there were no metal detectors and no device for swiping security badges and no security desk where visitors stopped before they continued to the elevators.

They stood and watched the people walk past, though it would have been more accurate to say the men who walked past because in the nearly ten minutes that they had been standing there, not one woman had come through the lobby.

Just before the elevators was an empty part of the foyer where the portrait of the President and CEO was on display. A few months earlier, Damien had sat for his new portrait and Alexander had laughed and told his father to have plenty of money on hand to bribe the guy to make sure that Damien didn't look his age; Delia had punched him in the arm for the comment. Delia and Alexander had come home on a Thursday so that they could be there for the unveiling, which had happened with much pomp and circumstance, champagne and _hors d'oeuvres._ Everyone had joked that there must be a third painting somewhere because Damien had not aged much since the last portrait had gone up, the second painted since he had take over Thorn.

Delia and Alexander stood in front of the picture, but it wasn't of Damien; it was of Paul Buher. Next to it was another portrait and it was of their father. Normally, there would be no other portrait competing with the one of the President and CEO of Thorn Industries, but Damien Thorn wasn't just anybody, or in this case, _hadn't_ been just anybody. The gold plaque underneath the portrait was simple and quickly drove home the point as to why the picture had been left there.

 **DAMIEN THORN**

 **1950-1982**

That was why the guard had reacted the way that he had; they had requested to see a man who had been dead for nearly eighteen years.

Sadness consumed both Thorns and they stood there, their arms around each other. Their grief was irrational, whoever this Damien had been, he hadn't been their father, but the children couldn't help but feel sorrow at his loss. And of course, there was the more practical reason that whatever was going on here, they would now have to try to figure it out without the benefit of their father.

Suddenly, Alexander pulled away from his sister. "The library! We can go to the library and try to figure out what's going on here."

"Sounds like as good an idea as any."

They left the building and hailed a cab and were immediately hit with another reminder that they were no longer in Kansas when the driver politely, but adamantly insisted that that no such place as the Harold Washington Library existed.

"Do you mean the library on Washington Street?" The cabbie looked at them in the rear view mirror.

"Sure." Alexander smiled at the man, who seemed much more at ease once he was given instructions to take them to a place that actually existed.

The Thorns looked at each other: what other surprises awaited them here?

Neither Thorn had ever been in the building while it had been the public library, but both had been in it as the Chicago Cultural Center so it was strange for them to see it filled with books instead of the place that both had gone with their father to meet various dignitaries, including Queen Elizabeth the Second.

"So?" Delia turned to her brother.

"We can start online, at least find out what happened to Damien?"

"Okay." She gave him a small smile.

"Hey, at least we're together, and we'll figure everything out, eventually." Alexander took her hand and gave it a squeeze.

"I know." She squeezed his hand back.

They walked around until they spotted a woman sitting at the reference desk. Alexander switched on his charm and was all smiles when he walked up to the woman, who responded to his confidence.

"Hi, we're looking for the computers. Can you tell us where they are?"

"Computers?"

"Yes, we want to go online to find something."

But the woman only stared at them and neither Thorn had to ask anymore questions. Where ever it was that they were, the internet, and computers as they knew them, didn't exist or weren't available for the average person. All their eggs hadn't been placed in the online basket.

"Do you have newspapers on microfilm?" Delia flashed her own winning smile at the woman.

The woman's face brightened. "Oh yes, we have issues of the _Tribune_ and the _Sun-Times_ going back to the first issues of both."

"Could we use those? And where are you current newspapers kept?" Delia wanted to know what was going on here, if what the radio and cabbie had said was true.

"The periodicals reading room is right over that way." The woman came out from behind the desk, pointed in one direction for the periodicals and then proceeded to take Delia and Alexander to a room with about a dozen microfilm readers, most of which were occupied.

"You just go over to the window and tell the tech what you want...how the issues are organized is in here." The woman handed Delia a binder.

"Thank-you."

"You're welcome. My shift is almost over, but anyone else will be glad to help." She turned and left the room.

The Thorns took a seat at one of the free machines and immediately Delia went to work deciding which issues of the newspapers she wanted. "I need pen or pencil and paper, please."

Alexander went to get what she wanted and came back with pens and enough paper to recopy _War and Peace_. He sat and he thought about something and he looked towards the direction of the entrance, even though he couldn't see it.

"What?" Delia stopped what she was doing and looked at him.

He turned to her. "No cell phones."

Delia thought about the people they had seen on the street and not one of them had been walking around with a phone stuck to the side of their face.

"Well, this looks like it's too much fun for two people, so I'll let you stay and do this while I go get the lay of land as it were. I'll come back for you so don't leave."

She gave a thumbs up with her left hand to show that she had heard and understood but had not stopped writing.

 **...666...**

Two hours later, Alexander came back to the library. He spotted Delia sitting at one of the tables going over the information that she had written.

He sat beside her. "So, what did you find out?"

"For starters, if we're stuck here, we can make our fortune writing _Harry Potter_."

"Well, it'll have to be a remarkably short series because I see your _Harry Potter_ and raise you nuclear Armageddon." Alexander handed Delia a newspaper. She hadn't made it to the current issues of the newspapers yet.

Delia eventually put it down and looked at Alexander. "The cabbie and the radio weren't exaggerating."

"Apparently not, and..." Alexander put a case on the table and opened it, "...I robbed a bank." 3

Delia looked inside the case and then reached into her jacket pocket, pulled out the money and put it on her table. "From the security guard."

Alexander smirked. "I win. I think I'll have to be breadwinner in the family seeing as how my twenty five grand beats your hundred bucks."

"Hey, one hundred and fifty thank you very much." Delia stood, gathering her things.

"Do you need anything else from here?"

"Nope."

"Okay, I got us a hotel room near here. Nice, clean, nowhere near as expensive as we're used to but it'll have to do." Xander walked to other side of the reference desk where there were more tables and where the phone books were kept. He searched until he found the one that he wanted and grabbed it and put it in the case with the money.

"Come on, I'm starved." And the pair of them left the library.

However, as hungry as Delia was, she wanted to eat in the hotel room, away from people so she and Xander could try to get a bead on their situation and so they could be alone. After buying clothes, they bought pizza and junk food and brought everything back to the hotel.

Once in the room, Delia was surprised to find two beds and after they put all their stuff down, she went to Alexander and put her arms around him. He brought her face to his and kissed her and she gladly gave in and returned the gesture, relaxing more than she had since all this had happened. He was right; they were together and that was all that mattered.

He pulled his mouth away from hers and smiled. "I came _this_ close to telling them that you were my wife. But I thought it best to stick to a half truth and said that you were my sister and with this being our first trip to Chicago, our over-protective parents didn't want you to be sleeping on your own."

"Quick thinking, Thorn." She kissed him on the nose and the two of them settled into their room and then tore into the pizza like they hadn't eaten in a month. It wasn't until the pair was sated from their meal that they sat on the bed and made themselves comfortable and got into a mind-set to try to figure all of this out.

There was silence as they looked at each other, but Alexander took a breath and went first. "Okay, we haven't travelled back in time, the date on the newspaper is the same as it was on this morning's paper when I was reading it, but we've gone...sideways in time? Fuck, it's like an episode of _Star Trek_ or something." He finished off his cola.

"I think that sounds right." Her voice was quiet and she locked eyes with her brother, neither being able to prevent themselves from thinking of their father.

"Delia, we had breakfast with him this morning. We watched him get into the car with Thomas and drive away." His voice was tinged with a grief that, again, made no sense.

"But not here. Wherever we are, he died, nine months before we were born." Delia felt a tightening in her chest and she fought the urge to cry.

Alexander nodded, as if he had had a discussion in his own head and had finally agreed on the outcome. "God put us here. What we felt? That was Satan. Whatever happened to us, happened for a reason. And it was meant to be us. How often does something 'just come up' for Damien at Thorn? We we're meant to be here, not Damien."

Delia closed her eyes and bowed her head, awed and overwhelmed that God had chosen her for some task. "Why do you think we're here?" She finally opened her eyes and regarded her brother.

He gave her a solemn shake of his head. "Your guess is as good as mine. I'm just afraid of failing."

"Satan has faith in us; that means we need to have faith in our ability to figure out why we're here."

He smiled at her. "My beloved sister who trusted in God years before I did."

"We both trust in Him know and that's all that matters." She leaned over and kissed Alexander. "I love you."

"I love you, too, nagging one, and right now, I'm feeling the need to do something concrete."

Alexander got off the bed and went to the case that contained the money, and then turned back to Delia, phone book in hand.

She smiled knowingly at him. "A phone book from Virginia...of what use could that possibly be?"

"York...Gene and Karen York. If Damien would have died, that's who would have been our parents so we look them up and see if there are usses from here."

Delia laughed. "The me from here you mean; you might be five years old."

"Unlucky me." Alexander flipped through phone book until he found an add for the law firm of York, York, Tate, and Smith.

Alexander dialed the number and he spoke briefly to the receptionist who put him through to Karen.

Delia sat and listened and smiled as her brother bullshitted his way through a fifteen minute conversation, something that she would have found nearly impossible to do, but she didn't have to wait to hear the final outcome of the conversation once he had hung up on Karen York.

"The York's have no children" Delia watched Alexander return and flopped himself back first onto the bed.

"The York's have no children."

"We could be anywhere, not just in the time line where we lived with the York's."

"Oh good, because for a second there, I thought that this wasn't going to be complicated." He sat up.

"In the dream, Damien walks through the church as calmly as you please with no stopping: Satan can't get through to Damien and Kate stabs him."

"But in this reality, Satan couldn't reach him in time and he died."

"Yes." Delia nodded.

"But I thought the general consensus was that Satan sent you the vision as a way to get you in touch with who you really are?"

"We should have realized that there may have been more to it than that when you had the dreams. Satan was trying to get us to understand that there are other realities, to warn us how conniving they are, that somewhere, they succeed in killing Damien."

"How are you feeling?"

Delia gave him a wry smile. "I feel great, one hundred percent nazarene free. So he wasn't born here either...murdering liars."

Alexander grabbed the papers that were on the bed and quickly looked through the ones pertaining to them and their father. "So, Damien Thorn dies of a heart attack in bed and leaves behind a bevy of followers, some of whom off themselves."

"Paul takes over running ThornIndustries again, which at some point has become the Thorn Corporation."

"And why does it look like this place is stuck in 1981?"

Delia laughed. "Yeah, it's pretty ghastly."

"I'm going to be having nightmares about women wearing legwarmers who look like Olivia Newton John asking me if I want to get physical." Alexander quickly read through the other tidbits of info that Delia had decided to include. "No attack on the World Trade Center in 1993...no internet...we could find Tim Berners-Lee and help him invent the world wide web...no cell phones...no kids wanting to go to _Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry_...and the world about to be blown up in a nuclear attack. What fresh hell is this?"

"We need to find Paul...or Thomas."

Alexander got up and picked up the phone again and got the number to the Thorn Corporation building and enquired about Thomas and Paul. Alexander hung up the phone, but once again Delia didn't need to be told one piece of information. "No Thomas."

"No Thomas. Not only was the sea of faces in the lobby of that building very male, it was also very white."

"And Paul?"

Alexander began taking off his shirt. "I was politely informed that he was out of the country. However, if you had to make an educated guess as to what other nation on the face of this Earth might be involved in all of this, what country would you pick?" He was now totally naked.

Delia had begun undressing also and was now as naked as her brother. "England. Tell me, Xander, what happened in England?"

She moved towards him and he kept backing up until his legs hit the end of the bed. He sat and pulled her to him, running his hands up the back of her thighs and up to her backside. "We were made there, Delia."

She pouted. "You can't just stop there, naughty dog."

He let go of her and backed himself up so that his ass was in the middle of the bed and then he lay back and got up on his elbows. "I don't know, Deedle, it gets awfully loud when we talk about that."

Delia knelt on the bed and on all fours made her way to him, eventually straddling him. "What if I promised that I'll be super quiet." She crossed her heart and made the scout sign.

"You misunderstand me; I like it when you're loud. I'll tell it only if my sister promises me that when I tell you the story once we get back to the house in Boston, you'll be as loud as you like."

"I promise." Delia put her hands on either side of his head and bent down, first moving to see if the bed made any noise, but it made no protest. Next, she buried her face in his neck, nibbling on his earlobe.

It sent shivers and goose pimples over his flesh. His hands moved up into her hair finding her mark; she softly groaned.

Alexander smiled. "Where to begin..."

 **...666...**

Alexander and Delia were in bed; he was sitting with his legs apart and she was sitting between them. They had eaten sandwiches and now where sharing chips and drinking soda...it was after midnight and Alexander had been flipping around the television stations to watch the news, which had ended at midnight.

"At least we arrived so we can watch the threat of nuclear destruction on CNN."

Delia yawned and then turned to face her brother. "Should we sleep in separate beds?"

"And in our pyjamas." He kissed her and they both got up to brush their teeth and washed their faces and when they came back into the sleeping area, both got into their pyjamas and into their own beds.

Alexander shut off the light and both lay in the darkness.

"Xander?"

"Hm?"

"What do you suppose is happening back in our own time line?"

He shook shook his head even though she couldn't see him do it. "I don't know, Deedle."

"Are we gone? Are we dead? What's going on?"

He didn't have to be empathetic to know she was as frustrated, scared and worried as he was and Alexander could do nothing but think of their poor father who might literally be tearing about the building look for them. He could do nothing but hold out his hand in the darkness and she took it and they stayed that way for a few minutes.

"I'm glad we're together."

"I am too, Deedle. I don't know what's going on, but whatever it is, you and I are on the job. That means we'll figure out this motherfucker and be home in time for tea and crumpets."

"Damn straight."

Eventually, he gave her hand a squeeze and pulled away from her and hiked his blankets up to his chin.

"Good night, Lucy."

"Good night, Ricky." Delia got comfortable and soon both of them were asleep.


	4. Rule Britannia

**Chapter Four—Rule Britannia**

Less than forty-eight hours later, the Thorn's were on a plane on their way from Chicago to London.

Delia and Alexander had grown up with much, but Damien had taught them to also do for themselves. They would laugh when they would go over to other people's homes and their children were seemingly stymied by what to do when the door bell rang and their butler wasn't there to answer the door.

However, the one thing that Delia and Alexander had never done was to take a plane ride in any other plane except for one of the corporate or private jets. It took of all five minutes for both of them to tire of it...even first class was too crowded and noisy. They were used to having to share space on the plane with each other and Damien, but that was it. Delia had been tempted to ask the stewardess if there was another part of the plane where the _extra_ important people sat because that's where she would like to be.

Eight and a half hours later, the plane landed at Heathrow Airport and Alexander and Delia could breathe once they got outside. Before leaving the States, they had exchanged some of the money from dollars to pounds and now sat outside a pub enjoying fish and chips.

On the way over, they had figured that since Paul was in England, he'd more likely be in one of two places, Felix or Oscar. Not wanting to waste time guessing where he was, they had first gone to Thorn headquarters in London to find out where Paul was staying. However, they soon discovered that no such places existed wherever they were and that Paul was staying in the Thorn suite in the Hyde Park Hotel. Once they were done eating, they would take a cab to see Paul to see if he could shed some light on what was wrong.

 **...666...**

It was only two in the afternoon and Paul Buher was on his fourth brandy of the day...nobody had to tell him that wasn't good. He was sitting behind the desk, leaning back in the chair. There was a meeting with the Syrians and the Israelis scheduled for tomorrow that the current U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain was going to attend.

However, it wasn't the politics that was causing his increase in the consumption of alcohol. He would be visiting _the boy_ today, and that always caused Paul to bend his elbow more than he normally did, not to mention chewing through half a bottle of antacid. He would take lunch here and then go visit the boy and then Paul would need more brandy to get over the visit.

The phone rang and Paul picked it up. "Hello?"

"There's a Delia and Alexander York to see you."

It was the front desk downstairs. "I don't know any Delia or Alexander York; tell them to leave."

There was a pause. "There's a Delia and Alexander York to see you."

"Are you deaf or stupid? I told you, I don't know any Delia or Alexander York."

There was another pause. "There's a Delia and Alexander York to see you."

Paul was about to tell the concierge that he would be fired, but there was something in the man's tone that made Paul stop. His voice was robotic and monotone...like he was under someone's influence. There was the boy, but he didn't drive and why would the concierge say that there were two people if it was the boy?

"Tell them I'll be ten minutes."

"Very good, Mr. Buher." The jovial tone had returned to the man's voice and he hung up the phone.

Whoever they were, they were already in the hotel, but Paul would not secede any more space to them by inviting them upstairs, so he would go to them, but in his own time...

When Paul arrived in the hotel lobby, ten minutes to the second, he didn't have to look around too long to find the two mysterious visitors, but they weren't what he was expecting.

First, they were young, maybe early twenties. Second, while Paul did not recognize them, something about them began to itch in his brain. The two of them looked back at Paul, not staring, but standing their ground. They understood the game that Paul was playing and would let him play it...for now.

Alexander had been looking around when Paul had come off the elevator and for anyone who wasn't Paul, it would have seemed as if he was just casually taking in his surroundings, but the boy had been observing, gathering information. He had turned to Paul with a small smile on his face; he knew something Paul didn't know and he liked that it gave him an advantage. Paul switched his attention to the girl.

Delia, Paul pegged them as siblings rather than husband and wife, had not been looking anywhere but at the elevator. Not because she wasn't interested in her surroundings; she had observed, made her assessment and was ready to move on to her next target, Paul.

The itch in Paul's brain became a voice telling him crazy talk, because he recognized them, not their looks, but their bearings. Paul closed his eyes, _it wasn't possible_ , but when he opened them, he looked with his gut and he understood whose children they were.

Alexander. Tall, like his father, with the same blue eyes, though not as piercing blue as Damien's had been. Handsome in a classic way and a smile that had made women throw themselves at Damien's feet, plus the same nonchalance that had made women want him even more. Boyish charm combined with elegance, intelligence, and confidence that on anyone else would have been arrogance. That combination had made Damien Thorn one of the most desirable bachelors on the planet. The boy was more at ease than the girl, but only an idiot would have thought that that made him less dangerous.

Delia. Tall, though not as tall as her brother. Attractive, classic features like her brother and father but, unlike he brother, held herself with reserve, like Damien, whom Paul had often joked was so stiff sometimes, he must have been born with a pole up his ass. Men would not be as attracted to her as women were to Alexander and Damien, it just didn't work that way, and he wondered what she was like under different circumstances, but for right now, he recognized her demeanor because he had seen it dozens of times in Damien in board room meetings and confrontations. She was not tense, but on guard, waiting for the moment to hand her opponent enough rope with which to hang himself and the slight smile on her face suggesting that she'd enjoy that, as Damien had.

Paul Buher swallowed. Somehow, someway that defied all logic, he was staring at children of Damien Thorn.

Paul must have turned pale...paler than he already was because the next thing he knew, Alexander was at his elbow.

"Don't have a heart attack." He lead Paul back to the elevator.

The elevator operator pressed the button to take the trio up to the Thorn suite. It was a quiet ride up as everything that needed to be said, needed to be said in private.

Once inside the suite, Paul headed straight for the alcohol and poured himself a straight whiskey; he downed that in one gulp. He poured another one, took a sip and gripped the glass as tight as he dared. He turned and faced them. "How is this possible?"

"All things are possible in God, Paul."

Alexander smiled at him...then Paul realized that Alexander was making a joke.

"We don't know how this happened. Two mornings ago, we were at one of the plants doing a walk-through for Damien then there was an accident and we ended up here."

Paul turned to Delia. She was watching and it was like having two Damiens. Alexander, the charming one, keeping you off balance with his easy going manner; Delia, the jackal, waiting to pounce when you fucked up, like good cop bad cop... _well, really just bad cop and even worse cop_.

Alexander was smiling; like his father, not much got past him. "We just want to make sure that you tell us the truth, but perhaps Delia can take it down a notch?" He looked over at his sister.

Delia smiled and relaxed somewhat. "Yes, we are Damien's children. We used York because we thought that name might mean something to you?"

But Paul only shrugged.

"Gene and Karen York from Virginia?"

But Paul merely shook his head again, but then he turned to Alexander. "Wait, you said you were doing a walk-through for Damien...Damien's alive?"

Alexander explained everything starting with the how the birth of the nazarene had been a lie and how _they_ had invaded Damien's head and made him believe that the Second Coming had happened. He told Paul how Satan had intervened and made his son understand that it was all a deception. He told him of the plan to have the York's adopt Delia, and how Delia would have carried inside of her the embryo of Alexander who would then be implanted in Karen. Delia would eventually be revealed to be the daughter of Damien Thorn and thus heir to the most powerful corporation on the face of the Earth. Delia would run Thorn Industries, Alexander would eventually become President of the United States and only those in Damien's inner circle would have known that Delia and Alexander were in fact related by blood and that Alexander was Damien's true son and heir. He told Paul that here, too, the nazarene had not been born.

Paul felt like he had been kicked in the teeth. They had to be wrong. The Christ had been born, Damien had said so. DeCarlo had gone with one of his priests and had verified the birth. And then there were the dreams...

"You have to be mistaken."

"Whom are you doubting, Paul, us or _them_?" Alexander took the drink that Delia had made for him.

"A lie?"

Alexander looked at his sister. Neither could understand his reticence to accept the truth.

"I've been having...dreams."

"What kind of dreams?" Delia took a sip of her own drink.

"Nightmares, really, destruction, devastation. There's the prophecy...are you aware of the situation here?"

"The world on the brink of being blown to tiny bits? Vaguely. Wait, are you saying that you're a part of this?" Alexander now gave Paul his undivided attention.

"More than a part of it, right smack dab in the middle of it. The current U.S. Ambassador, Philip Brennan, is under my control. I'm trying to manipulate things in our favor."

"You're trying to manipulate nuclear devastation in our favor? Please tell me how that works. And what prophecy?" Delia joined her brother in giving Paul all her attention.

"Not devastation, destruction, the nuclear fall out would be managed. Luke 21..." but Paul had stopped talking as he observed the Thorn's.

Delia and Alexander looked at each other and they understood. They were here to stop whatever all this was.

"Well, we're in charge now and whatever is going on comes to a halt, immediately."

"It's not as simple as that." Paul squirmed under Alexander's unyielding gaze.

"I'm making it that simple, Paul."

Alexander moved towards him and for one tiny second it was as if Damien had come back from the dead and joy took hold of Paul's heart and despite the somber tone of the conversation, he gave the boy a broad smile. "You are your father's son."

Alexander was briefly taken aback, but smiled at him. "Thank-you."

Paul moved to the window and looked out. "It's not so easy because...Damien has a son here."

"What's wrong with him?"

Paul turned to Alexander.

"If you were anyone else but you, you would have turned cartwheels when you realized who I was, so I can't help wondering why you're so happy when Damien's son is alive and well."

"Alive, yes. As for well...you don't look like your father, not really, but once I knew who were his son, I could...see it, if that makes any sense. But you're like him where it counts: confident, smart...I don't mean to ignore you...may I call you Delia?"

"It's my name and it's okay."

Delia smiled at him and he could see Damien's charm there, too. "And you have more of a sense of humor than Damien had."

"Oh, well, that was Damien at the tender young age of thirty-one and having no children. You need a sense of humor when you have children, but certainly you must have learned that from your brother?" Alexander took another drink.

"My brother didn't have any children."

"No Anna?" Delia looked at Paul.

Paul shrugged. "He didn't have any children, but Anna was..."

"...your grandmother's name." Delia smiled.

Alexander handed Paul another drink and he drank half of it before he told the Thorn's the story of how he had been devastated to learn of Damien's death, but he had received a phone call from a doctor here in England who had informed him that Kate was pregnant and how she had died giving birth to the boy. Paul told them how happy he had been knowing that the son would take over for the father.

But the boy would never have the life that Damien had, for there was the Christ to worry about. No going to school, no having friends, no birthday parties, no girlfriends, no vacations, no fun outside of the grounds on which he lived. Damien's son would have to live in seclusion and his existence kept a secret until he could come out of hiding...whenever that would be. The boy had a tutor, George, who had been Damien's manservant when Damien was Ambassador, and George looked after him. They did the best they could for the boy, but it wasn't the same.

"You keep calling him Damien's son or the boy. What's his name?"

Paul inhaled and then loudly exhaled. "He doesn't have one."

"Come again."

Paul turned to Delia. "Nobody was sure what to call him. In the beginning, nobody wanted to call him Damien and then once he turned twelve, he didn't want a name."

"So he has no name?"

"Correct."

"Paul, what is he?"

Paul looked at Alexander. "Nobody is sure. Yes, he's Damien's son, but...you don't look like Damien and you're unlike him in many ways, but I knew it was you...you carry yourself like Damien did." Paul closed his eyes. "He is the spit of Damien, I mean the spit. I knew your father from the age of twelve and the boy is now seventeen and he looks _exactly_ like Damien did at that age. But he lacks his father's charm and, well, everything that made Damien, Damien. Whether he's Damien's son, or Damien reborn or some kind of combination of the two..." Paul shrugged.

But a heavy silence hung in the air and Delia and Alexander didn't have to be empathic to know that there was something more that Paul wanted to say.

"What is it your not telling us?" Delia raised an eyebrow at Paul.

Paul looked between the siblings. "May I ask a question that might prove to be indecorous?"

"Go for it." Alexander nodded at Paul.

"How were you both born?"

"I don't understand." Delia frowned.

"You mentioned something about having Alexander's embryo inside you?"

"Yes, but that's not what happened. I was conceived first, then Alexander and for nine months were both were in Kate's womb and she had a cesarean and then was killed. We were born on christmas day...you have to know how much that pleased Damien."

"I'll bet." Paul smiled thinly.

"So far we haven't got to anything improper, so I'm confused," Alexander chimed in.

"His was an...unusual conception and birth."

"How so?"

Paul didn't know how to continue and Alexander came over to him. "We don't have time for this; we're here for a reason and the sooner we start getting to the bottom of it, before the world gets blown to little pieces, the better."

"It was clear from his conception that Kate and Damien engaged in...unusual sexual activity."

"Unusual how?"

"In where the boy was conceived in Kate's body." Paul looked at Delia and quickly looked away, as if her presence was preventing him from coming right out and telling Alexander what had happened.

But Alexander smiled; Alexander, who at the age of thirteen had accidentally seen what had transpired that night Damien had had sex with Kate and had made both him and his sister.

"Are you trying to say, or not say, as the case may be, that the, let's call it, non-heteronormative sexual activity that Damien engaged in with Kate resulted in a child being conceived in her rectum?"

Paul was the color of newly fallen snow at this point, but nodded his head in agreement.

Delia and Alexander looked at each other...they would discuss this at a later point.

"Where is he?" Alexander continued.

"Pereford House."

"Where?"

"Where Damien lived while he was Ambassador to Great Britain."

"Um, here's an interesting question. Why didn't Damien live in Winfield House in Regent's Park?"

"Where?"

"The official residence of the American Ambassador to Great Britain." Delia felt like she was lecturing to a third grader.

"Pereford House belongs to the Thorn's."

"Well, I can own a house in Washington DC that goes back four generations, but when I become President, I live in the White House...it doesn't matter." Alexander shook his head in frustration.

"Where are the daggers?" Delia looked at Paul; she was all business again.

"I know where one is. The others..."

"You're going to find them and keep them for us."

"Also, you will not tell him what we told you about the nazarene not being born. When the time is right, we will tell him. Where is Pereford House?" Alexander grabbed paper and a pen from Paul's desk.

Paul gave Alexander the location of the house. "There's a gate, and security cameras around the back of the house."

"None of which is a problem for us. Can you get him out of the house?" Alexander looked at Paul.

Paul thought about it. "Sometimes, in his more boyish moods, he asks me to take him to the movies."

"Perfect. The day after tomorrow is Saturday. Make a day of it...lunch, movie, ice-cream afterwards. Have this George person out of the house as well."

"No problem. Why?"

"Because something is rotten in the state of Denmark, Paul and it appears to be coming from the direction of Pereford House. Don't tell him that you're looking for the daggers, either," Delia warned.

Alexander could feel the apprehension coming from Paul, but he smiled at him and it seemed to put Paul at ease. "Just get him out of the house, we'll do the rest. I'd ask you to come to where we're staying to let us know how everything went, but we haven't found a room yet, our suitcases are downstairs."

Paul put up his hand, went to the desk, picked up the phone and called The Savoy and told them that the Thorn Corporation suite would be being used by friends of his and what ever they wanted was the go on the Thorn account.

"Now you have a place to stay. Do you have a car?"

"Not yet."

Paul picked up the phone again and called to the Thorn Corporationgarage and told them to immediately bring a car over to The Savoy. Paul started to request a driver, but a quick wave of Alexander's hand made Paul belay the order. He hung up. "If you need anything else, just let me know."

"Will do. Otherwise, come and see us Sunday morning and let us know how everything went." Alexander extended his hand and Paul took it. "And thanks for the place to stay."

"No problem, glad I can help." Paul shook Delia's hand as well.

"Good-bye, Paul, we'll see you Sunday."

The pair made their way downstairs and waited not more than twenty minutes until a Thorn Corporation car pulled up in front of the hotel. Their suitcases were loaded in and Alexander began the drive to The Savoy and as the car pulled away from the hotel, both Thorn siblings could still feel Paul's disappointment at their departure.


	5. Meddling

**Chapter Five—Meddling**

They had eaten breakfast and were now sitting in bed, face to face, their legs wrapped around each other. Delia had hung on to the fruit from their meal and had put a grape in her mouth and Alexander reached over to take it from her, but she quickly sucked the grape into her mouth. His lips landed on her mouth instead. She could feel him smile as he kissed her.

"That's yummier than the grape, Deedle."

"I'm glad you think so." She kissed him back and then looked around and stretched. "This is more like it. Crystal chandeliers, gold plated faucets and, most importantly, people at our beck and call. I'm filthy rich, why don't I live like this?" She unwrapped her legs from around her brother, turned around and leaned against him so that her back was against his chest.

"That, Delia, is a very good question. Now comes the answer. People interfere with our ability to have fun in the house." He kissed up the side of Delia's neck.

"What kind of fun, Xander?" She turned and bit her lower lip.

"Name it and the kinds of things we like to do are ruined by the presence of _homo sapiens sapiens_ , well, unless we're torturing them. Your choice, we can have people running around our home in Boston, serving us hand and foot, or I can strip you naked, bend you over the dining room table, day or night and, well, I'm sure my very intelligent sister is smart enough to figure out what happens after that." Alexander pushed Delia forward so that she was lying on the bed on her stomach. He got up on all fours and began kissing his way from her tail bone up to the base of her neck, making Delia giggle and moan.

"Mmm, I like that last one...let's keep doing that."

"We can do that last one right now. If you want."

She rolled over so that she was facing him. He had moved so that leaning over her. She reached up and touched his face. "I very much want."

"And what my sister wants, she gets."

"I want my brother."

She bit her lip and Alexander smiled, leaned down and kissed her. He loved how she was girlish for only him. That he saw a side of her that no one else was privy to.

"And I want my sister."

Delia looked up at him. None of this would ever get old...loving him, kissing him, touching him, being with him. Alexander was her heart and soul, and her life, and where he went, she would follow, even if he betrayed their father, Satan, and his fate.

"I love you, Xander, always and forever."

"I love you, Deedle, forever and always."

As he straddled her, both were thinking the same thing: that she'd get pregnant and they could live here as husband and wife. Paul would never tell. It wasn't a substitute for going home, but it would make being here more than tolerable.

The sex was relatively quick, they had things that needed doing, but it didn't meant that the act was done without the usual protestations of love and devotion between the pair of them.

Once it was done, Delia sighed and kissed Alexander.

"Well done, little brother."

He frowned. "Who you calling little?"

Delia put her hands on his chest to push him off, which he did, eventually jumping out of bed. He reached out and she took his hand, and pulled her up and she stood beside him.

"Younger, Delia, not little."

"Mere semantics, Alexander."

"We'll see about little, in the shower."

Delia took his hands and pulled him towards the bathroom.

"Promises, promises."

And with a giggle, she closed the bathroom door shut behind them...

After their shower, Alexander came out into the bedroom first to make sure that there wasn't anybody in the room and then he and Delia dried off and got dressed.

Last night before going to sleep, they had brainstormed and now they sat at the table looking over what they had written.

"Alexander, I don't even know where to start."

"Oh, I think we both know where to start. Please explain to me how it its possible to conceive a child...where she conceived a child."

"That can't be real."

"I don't know, Paul wasn't lying."

"But, Xander, why have a baby born that way? It's gross."

"And how? To make Damien, Satan possessed a jackal because He needed his parts to be compatible with a female jackal's parts...though she did give birth to a human shaped baby so, I don't know, anything is possible, I guess."

"And what about us?"

"Delia, I showed you what I saw and Damien certainly engaged enough, let's call it hetero-normative sexual activity to have had ample opportunity to impregnate our mother the old-fashioned way."

"Luke 21:8...'Take heed that ye be no deceived: for many shall come in my name, saying, I am christ; and the time draweth near; go ye not therefore after them.' Earthquakes, famines, pestilence...Jerusalem surround by armies...desolation. Nice to know that Paul is stupid enough to be using the enemy's marching orders as our own. And why doesn't Paul have the daggers? Damien took them after he killed the priests. They should have been in his residence and found once Paul had sorted through Damien's belongings after he died."

Alexander threw up his arms in frustration. "Delia, this place is upside down and backwards...chickens running around with their heads cut off; only the chickens are still trying to tell everyone what to do." He took a drink of coffee and then looked at his sister, his attitude softening. "How does he not have a name? Some states won't let you leave the hospital without naming your child? Why doesn't he want a name for himself?"

Delia shook her head. "I don't know. Why didn't Damien live in the official residence of the Ambassador?"

"This place is making my head spin."

"And we didn't get very much figured out either."

Alexander smiled at Delia and she came to him. He wrapped his arms around her waist and he held her. "I have a feeling that for good or bad, going to that house tomorrow is going to go a long ways towards helping us doing that."

 **...666...**

They were in the woods, far enough away from the house not to be seen. The had gone shopping yesterday and bought some things, dark clothing and binoculars, which they were now employing, the lenses trained on the front of the house waiting for the occupants to leave. Paul was already there, his car was parked in the driveway.

Paul had called them last night and had given them the plan. He would come at eleven and take the boy and George into the city. They would have lunch somewhere, see the movie and then stop for ice-cream and planned to have everyone back by five. Paul told the siblings where to leave the car and had told them of the woods where they could wait until Paul left with the boy and George. Paul had voice concern about the dog, but Alexander told him not to worry. Paul told them good luck, Alexander told him to have fun and reminded Paul to come and see them the next day.

They had been there for nearly fifteen minutes when the door of the house opened and Paul stepped out, followed by someone whom they guessed was George. There was a pause and then _he_ walked out and the gasps that Delia and Alexander let escape from their lips were quickly stifled fearing that somehow, illogically, they could be heard by the three individuals leaving the house.

Paul had said that he was the spit of Damien, and logically, they had understood what that meant...but understanding it was one thing, seeing it was something else, because out of the door of the mansion stepped a seventeen-year-old Damien Thorn.

Damien had shown them pictures of himself at Yale _,_ his first year at college, just like Delia and Alexander were now experiencing at Harvard. Damien at seventeen...any picture taken that had girls in it, had all of them staring at Damien, not at the camera. His charm and confidence came across even in the photographs and would have been enough to make most women fall head over heels in love with him.

But the minute the boy came into view, they understood what Paul had meant. He physically looked like Damien, but that's where the resemblance started and ended. It was like someone had taken a person and had tried to stuff him a Damien Thorn suit and they had done a bad job of it.

That Damien had a poker face as a vast understatement. Even under the strain of the so-called birth of the nazarene, he had been able to maintain the semblance of normalcy, it had fooled Kate and everyone else, but this boy wore himself on his sleeve. He looked back inside, as if he were an agoraphobe leaving the house for the first time, though Paul had said he often took walks on the grounds. He sniffed the air and he was apprehensive at first, as if he could smell if the nazarene was close by. He fearfully glanced around him, but he looked at Paul, who must have had a smile on his face, because the boy grinned triumphantly. Both he and George got into the back seat and Paul got into the front and be drove away in the opposite direction from Delia, Alexander and their car.

Walking, Delia and Alexander made their way to the house and to the gate, which didn't have anyone manning it and had been shut and locked once the trio had left in the car. Delia put her hand on the gate and it swung open...

Not long after Delia knew who she was, she had invited Damien up to the chapel with her and had gone to her room to get her key. He had stood at the door and smiled, understanding that doing what she was doing made her feel grown-up and happy that she knew what was up those once forbidden stairs. He had let her lead the way up the room and they had paused at the door while Delia unlocked it. She had frowned and turned to Damien and had asked him why they needed a key. Surely, a locked door was no barrier against Satan or his son? Damien had smiled and said that Satan didn't do parlor tricks. She had not understood then, but had later come to get what Damien had told her.

The outside of the house was gorgeous, the estate massive and more impressive than their own house in Chicago. But their home had a certain understated elegance that had pleased the Thorn men who had lived there. They got up to the front door and again opened it without the need of a key.

They took one step into the house and immediately stepped back out again.

"Xander, I can't go in there." Sweat had popped up along her hairline, dripping down into her ears.

"Delia, what is this? How can this feel so wrong?"

She could feel her brother's terror and it was added to her own. "The last time I was this scared was when I was in..."

"...their church for the first time. I want to run away. Why do we feel like this?"

"I don't know," her voice was small and weak and she wanted her father.

"We have to do this. I'm convinced that whatever is going on, whatever it is that we are here to fix, is in this house." Alexander was trying to plaster confidence over his escalating nausea and fear.

"I know." She held her hand out to her brother and he took it.

"We're Thorn's and we can do anything."

"Damn straight." She gave him a shaky smile, kissed his hand and then let it go.

They stepped in, braced themselves and closed the door behind them. Next, they removed their shoes, sat crossed-legged on the marble floor in the foyer and waited...

The dog came from their left and they turned and looked at him, but even if they had not seen him, they would have smelled him; he reeked. One more than once, their dogs had rolled in something questionable and seemed to, on those occasions especially, loved to rub themselves on everyone, but this was different. The dog stank of death and the word abattoir had come into both their heads.

He stood there, backing up and moving forward and stopping; he was confused. He let out a few odd barks and woofs and shook his head a few times. He checked behind him, as if he expected to see his master standing there. He began shaking.

They felt horrible for him, but they did the best thing they could do: they remained calm and sent their strength to him. They didn't speak. Words were for people to use, they could all communicate without speaking, so for now, the siblings were silent.

Apparently over his confusion, he began to slowly move forward, head down, his tail tucked close into his body, he came to them, pushing against Alexander, but he gave Delia his head as well.

If his body stank, his breath was beyond their ability to describe it.

Delia frowned and opened his mouth and examined him. Stuff, and that was as far as she was letting her overactive imagination go, was stuck between his teeth.

"Poor Milo, yes, that's you. We named all of our dogs Milo. You can be Milo, too. Would you like that?"

The dog licked Delia's face and she gagged.

Milo sat, his tail thumping excitedly on the floor, and turned his attention to Alexander.

Alexander stroked down the dog's sticky back and gave him a scratch at the base of his tail. Next, he moved up and gave Milo some hearty scratching behind the ears and it was if a deluge had been unloosed and the dog began licking Alexander's face and he threw himself onto the floor, offering his belly to Alexander, who dutifully gave it a scratch. Delia reached over and did the same.

"He's starved for affection. Even Damien gives his dog a belly scratch on occasion." Alexander turned his attention to the dog and attempted to push away the sadness that he felt for the animal.

"Hey, Milo, don't you get your belly scratched? All of our dogs love a good belly scratch, especially from Delia, but I just think that's because she's a girl. What's been going on here, fella, bad things? We're going to see if we can't put some bad things right. We're counting on you to be connected to God, to Satan, you have to be above everything that's going on here because we may need your help."

The dog sat up and was very still, as if to say that he could be counted on to help with whatever was needed, but then came over to Alexander and nuzzled him.

"We are going to have to burn these clothes because that stink is never coming out of what we're wearing. Okay, how about we have a look around. Hey, Milo, wanna help us look around?"

The dog began wagging his tail, excited at the thought of spending time with his new masters.

They took in their surroundings. In many respects, it was like their home in Chicago, gorgeous, timeless, well-furnished, but there was also something cloying about the place...and ominous. Maybe others didn't see it, but Delia and Alexander could feel the undercurrent to the place and as far as they were concerned, they couldn't get out of there fast enough.

Alexander looked down at the dog and around the house and began laughing.

"What?"

"Delia, we're investigating a creepy, mysterious house with a dog..."

Her eyes widened and she started laughing. "Holy shit, we're in an episode of _Scooby-Doo_."

"I _hope_ at the end of this is the light-house keeper in a mask telling us he would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for us meddling kids, but somehow I don't think so."

They decided to start their search on the first floor. Dining room, sitting room, foyer, family room all what they would have expected in a house like this...expensive and well looked after. Both noticed that the sitting room looked like it hadn't seen visitors since Damien had lived there.

Kitchen, well-maintained and contained what they assumed were modern conveniences. A quick look in the fridge, pantry and cupboards revealed that it was well-stocked.

They went into the basement and then into the cellar, where they found preserves and an excellent selection of wines.

The rest of the first floor had yielded nothing of importance so now the trio stood at the bottom of the stairs leading to the second floor. Delia and Alexander looked at each other...now would come the test.

Alexander got down to eye level with the dog, who reached out and licked Alexander's face. "Hey, Milo, where's his bedroom?"

The dog began walking up the stairs and they followed. At the top of the stairs, the dog waited for them and then he went to his right, walking until he got to a door that was closed. The dog sat, thumped his tail on the carpeted floor and looked at Alexander.

"Hey, I forgot." Delia reached into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out a treat. "This is for you, for being a very good dog."

He sucked it up like a vacuum cleaner.

"Good boy." Alexander scratched behind the dog's ear.

The door opened when they turned the knob, but in this instance because it wasn't locked. Alexander could see the light switch on the side of the wall and toggled the switch but nothing happened; either there was not bulb, or it was burned out.

"Hang on."

Delia ran back downstairs to the living room and the dog followed her and stopped at the top of the stairs, waiting for her to return, which she did...with a lamp. She gave Milo another treat and he devoured that one as quickly as the first.

They had also brought flashlights with them and Alexander shone his on the bottom of the wall until he found a socket. Delia handed him the lamp and he plugged it in and he smiled in the dark.

"And God said...let there be light." Alexander pushed in the switch and very quickly the smile fell away.

The room was the color of dried blood. It was tiny and cramped and most definitely was not the room that Damien had used while he had lived here. The window, and there was only one, was covered with a thick curtain, which neither Delia nor Alexander touched. They stood in the middle of the room and spun, taking it all in. It looked like a jail cell.

On the wall beside his bed were clippings from newspapers yellowed with time that looked like they would crumble to dust if they were touched. Beside the newspaper articles were two framed photos: one was of Damien and the other was of Kate's tombstone.

Alexander shook his head and brought out the other piece of equipment that they had come with them, an instant camera.

The wall was also covered with a collage of humanity's worst examples, or best depending on how one cared to look at it, of man's inhumanity to his fellow man, concentration camps, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot. On the collage, the boy had written something in the same color as the paint on the walls. Neither twin could make out what the word was, but they hadn't needed the words because the pictures said it all: however bad all this was, it was just a warm up the main attraction of nuclear annihilation.

Delia went to his desk as Alexander continued to take pictures and she didn't touch anything in case he had a way of telling that someone had moved stuff, but there was an open copy of _Mein Kampf._ He had written in it...underlined things, had put exclamation marks beside other things. Delia tapped Alexander on his shoulder, showed him the book and Alexander took photos of it.

Once he was done with the photograph taking, he looked around the room and turned to his sister. "I'm no psychiatrist, but I'm going to go out on a fairly secure limb and say he is out of his fucking mind." Alexander stared at the collage on the wall. "Delia, this is the bedroom of a serial killer, and I'm not being facetious when I say that."

"You're not going to get an argument from me, on either of those points."

They stood their for a few more moments. They were pretty sure that everything looked the same and that nothing had been disturbed. Alexander unplugged the lamp and they made their way out of his bedroom and closed the door behind them.

Delia ran back downstairs to return the lamp and when she came back up, Alexander was standing next to a door way that lead to stairs.

He turned to her. "Three guesses what's up these stairs and the first two do not count."

Delia frowned. Whatever badness they could feel within the house was coming from up these stairs. She didn't want to move forward and she could also feel her brother's trepidation, but they had little choice if they wanted to find out what was going on.

"Onwards and upwards." Alexander walked through the door way and put his hand on the banister and began the ascent.

Delia took a deep breath and followed her brother up the stairs.

There were three floors before they got to the top and each step to their destination was more difficult than the last. It was like they were walking through ever thickening ooze until the pair of them collapsed against the banisters, like two senior citizens who were unable to pick up their feet to get up one more step.

"I'm dying inside."

Alexander was drenched with sweat. His t-shirt was soaked through and it looked like he had taken a shower with it on. He was having trouble breathing and it was taking everything he could muster to not hurl himself down the stairs to get away from what was happening to him.

"It's worse than being in their church, it feels like Damien and Satan are hurting us."

Like her brother, Delia's sweat was dripping off her in loud plops onto the rug and she was on the verge of hysterics that would send her screaming from the house.

" _Miasma._ " Alexander looked at his sister.

"Pollution...disease...there is something _very_ rotten not only in the state of Denmark, but in the whole fucking world and it all comes from here, from this house, from up these stairs. _Oedipus Rex_...I remember Dr. D'Onofrio telling us that that's what was wrong with Athens, there was a _miasma_ that had to be found and destroyed. Of course, Oedipus, chock-full of hubris, took it on himself to get the job done; turned out, he was the _miasma_."

"But we've been sent here by God, we aren't going against Fate."

"I know, I hope so anyway, but I'll tell you something else, just like Oedipus, we are not going to be happy with what we find. Nothing that is making us feel this bad is going to be good." Delia reached out her hand and Alexander took it and they both continued to their destination.

At the top of the stairs was a landing and they were facing a wall with no other way to turn but to their right where they found a locked door and collapsed against either side of it. They didn't dare sit because they wouldn't have been able to get back up again.

"How is it that we've climbed Kilimanjaro and I feel worse now than I did then?" Alexander was huffing and puffing trying to catch his breath.

"I don't know and I'd _prefer_ never to find out." Delia was doing her best to try of center herself and remain calm. She was pretty sure that when she got back to the hotel, she'd spend the next twenty-four hours comotose trying to recover from this.

Milo had accompanied them up the stairs and now was nudging and licking their hands in an attempt to boulster their spirits.

Delia bent down and kissed him between the eyes. "Is this what you live with? Poor baby. If you lived with us, I'd bathe you and take you to vet to get your teeth all nice and clean because apparently being a familar from Satan doesn't protect you from gross doggy breathe, even for our dogs. If anything has to happen to him, we want you to come live with us."

Alexander let out a snort of laughter. "Just what father wants, another dog, but you bet, you'll come with us."

Delia straightened up and the two of them braced themselves as Alexander opened the door, which had been locked.

And suddenly, it was like the door to the worse place on Earth had been opened. Everything that they had been feeling, fear, anger, rage, anxiety, hate, worry, doubt, sadness, grief was trebled, quadrupled by opening the door. Neither wanted to go in...in their whole lives, neither had not wanted to do anything like not wanting to walk into that room, but they knew that they had to.

They stood outside the door looking into the darkened room, gripped by nausear, clinging onto each other. Not only for support, but to prevent the other from running away.

"Xander." Delia's chest heaved and she sobbed into her brother's chest, as he held her.

"I know." He kissed the top of her head as he fought back his own tears. Their sadness was not only because theywere at the end of their emotional tethers, but they knew that the sanctity of the room and been desacrated.

Each could remember the first time they had been in their own chapel. Delia, finally being able to understand and articulate what had been so special about the room for all those years. Alexander, so overwhelmed at feeling God for the first time that it had driven him to his knees and he had wept in his father's arms. That feeling of Satan in the room, calling to them, beckoning them forward to be one with Him...but that was absent in here. Again, it reminded both of them of being in one of _their_ churches, but there was that undercurrent of Satan and Damien, but the purity of those feelings were being perverted.

They were still feeling ill, but both knew that this was the last place they had to investigate. Once they were done here, they could go.

Alexander took a few shaky breaths and turned on the flashlight and shone it on chapel floor. There didn't seem to be anything that would indicate that he and Delia had entered the room. He took a few steps in and then shone the light behind him. No foot prints. Delia came in next.

The room was dark, much darker than their own chapel was, and Alexander turned the flashlight up: there was no skylight, but he moved his flashlight and quickly found the plinth with an unlit candle.

Delia reached out and grabbed Alexander's hand and the light landed on something.

Damien had told them that at one time, he had had an effigy of their christ in the chapel. It had helped him focus his energies, particularly when he thought that the nazarene had been reborn, but had gotten rid of it once everything was over and realized that his intense emotional reaction had been part of the reason that Satan had not been able to reach him.

Damien's son had kept that effigy.

The light caught something shiny and the two went over. There, embedded in the spine of the effigy of the nazarene, was one of the seven daggers, no doubt the one to which Paul was referring when he had said that he knew of one of locations of the daggers.

"Xander, what's that?"

Delia moved forward and Alexander trained the light on what had taken Delia's attention away from the knife and he froze. He couldn't speak, out loud or in his mind. He wanted to warn his sister to stop but he couldn't.

Delia thought that it looked like a dummy, but what would a dummy be doing up here seemingly staring at the effigy of their christ? She reached out to touch it and then stopped because she could feel evil radiating from the object...could this be what was causing these feelings in the both her and Alexander and making the room so unbearable to be in?

Tufts of dark hair were stuck to the head and then she took one step back and took in the object as a whole, seeing it for what it was. The blood drained from Delia's face and for the first time since she had mastered using the toilet, she was in serious danger of pissing in her pants. It was no dummy she was staring at. It was a body, a very dead body.

Delia was face-to-face with the well-perserved corpse of Damien Thorn.

She was suddenly moving away, backwards and she didn't know how she was doing that until she realized that Alexander had his arm around her waist and was dragging her out of the room. She found her feet and the two of them flew down the stairs that lead up to the chapel and then down the main stairs leading to the foyer and Alexander yanked open the door.

Outside was sunny and hot. Birds chirped in the trees and two squirrels chased each other up and down a large oak. It was a perfect day for picnicing with you best girl or fellow, or going to the beach or relaxing in a hamock, lazily consuming a cold beer.

Yet both Thorns felt chilled to the bone.

Delia came over and stood by the open door. Both of them wanted to run...run and then drive as fast as their feet, and then car, would carry them.

But it was wishful thinking on their parts and Alexander shut the door. They had been sent here to do a job and they would see it through to the end regardless of the consequences.

Both slid down the door, their asses hitting the floor and drew their legs up to their chests. They couldn't afford to do anything more than that. If they broke down at this point, there could be no finishing the job.

They sat there, dejected and lost when Alexander had an idea: if he couldn't do it for himself...he spat into his hand and turned to his sister. "I promise to be strong for Delia."

She lifted her head from off her knees and held up her hand and spit in it. "I promise to be strong for Alexander."

They shook hands and Delia wiped her hand on her brother's pantleg.

The dog was laying with his head on Alexander's feet, whining, not for himself, but for the dreadful mood that his masters were in.

"What we need, Deedle, is a happy thought," Alexander's voice was shaky and happy thoughts seemed as far away as Mount Kilimanjaro.

Delia, like Alexander, was pale. "Like _Peter Pan_?"

"Exactly."

She was silent and then she turned and gave her brother a wan smile. "This isn't our first time being in England."

Alexander knew what she had in mind and nodded at her. "You go first. You knew who Damien was before I did; you go first and last."

"We came when we were twelve, after you knew who you were. Before we did anything else, or went anywhere else, Damien took us to all the places where he killed the priests to get the daggers. The first one, in the _BBC_ studio where Kate interviewed him for the first time. The _BBC_ wanted to do an interview with him...catching up...what was fatherhood like blah, blah, blah. Damien had asked one of the stage managers if it was okay if he took his children to have a bit of a look-see...not a problem. He had taken us to Studio 4. It was used for something different now, but he had smiled and looked up and we looked up, too. The priest had been on the catwalk, but his foot got caught on some rope and he lost his balance and fell...first through some plastic sheeting then through a light...one less priest." She smiled.

They were walking up the stairs, back to the chapel.

Alexander continued, "Damien killed three at one time. The plan was to jump him in an abandoned church and once Damien came in, one of them threw his coat over him, I guess that they could stab our father to death, but they didn't want to look at him while they did it. However, when they removed the coat, they had found that they had stabbed one of their own instead. Damien forced the other of them into an abandoned stairwell that had been sealed off and then locked the grate and left them there. They were still there when we went...much deader of course. Aw, Deedle, you get my favorite."

"Mine too, but it's okay, you go."

They were outside the door to the chapel. The walk up the stairs had been just as difficult as before, but telling the story of how Damien had bested the priests had helped.

"Two priests...at a fox hunt. One of the priests had used a decoy fox to get father away from the larger pack and it worked and they trapped Damien on a bridge."

Alexander and Delia entered the room. Now that they knew what was there, it was difficult not to look, but they went first to the effigy of the nazarene and Alexander took a picture of the dagger.

"Damien turned to the priest on the horse and made the horse imagine that it was being ripped apart by jackals. The horse threw off his rider over the side of a bridge. Damien had had to ride down the steep embankment afterwards to get the dagger, but first, he turned to the other priest and set the hounds on him and they ripped him to shreds."

They were at Damien's body and Alexander took a picture of the dagger embedded in Damien's spine and one of the face of the corpse. He took pictures of the support that was being used to hold up the body. For good measure, Alexander and Delia shone their flashlights around the room, but there didn't seem as if there was anything else of use for them. Any reflections on what it all meant would be done later back at the hotel room.

But Delia turned her attention to the effigy and her eyes narrowed to slits. Alexander stood behind it, as if trying to prevent the christ from leaving.

"We drove the three hours from London to Fountains Abbey. Damien parked on the road and we walked into the church. Alexander and I went to the place where we had seen Kate stab him, but it didn't matter because Damien was alive. Father brought us to the spot where he had seen through your deception and figured out that you were lying and we opened a bottle of champagne and passed it around and celebrated."

Xander moved closer to the effigy, "We celebrated because Damien lived and you were never reborn; we won and you lost."

"Because where we come from, we're smarter than you are."

Alexander smiled and held out his hand and Delia took it and they walked out of the room closing the door behind them, checking to see if it was locked, which it was.

It was important now to be calm and think and make sure that they didn't leave any trace of their presence. They went through the house again, though they hadn't really touched anything and Delia went back out into the living room and made sure the lamp looked right and she came back to Alexander, who was sitting on the floor of the foyer with the dog in his lap.

Delia came over and sat beside her brother and the dog looked over at her and gave her the most pitiful look that she had ever seen; her heart broke.

"Milo, sweetheart, we can't take you with us. He'll know that something is wrong if we do. You have to stay here to help us. We are going to come back and put Damien's body to rest and for that to happen, we need our dog on the inside and that's you."

"We told you we'll take you with us and we will, I promise, but we need you to listen for us, in here." Alexander tapped the side of Milo's head. "When that happens, we need him out of the house and that's where you come in."

Milo got up from Alexander's lap and turned and sat.

"We all have to be brave packmates right now, okay?"

The dog looked stoically at him.

They opened the door and got their shoes and he came closer and watched them.

Once Delia was done putting on her shoes, she bent down and kissed the dog between his eyes. "We'll be back, we promise."

"As you were, soldier."

The dog backed away and moved towards the dining room, but stopped and looked back at Alexander.

"We promise." He crossed his heart, even though he was sure the dog had no clue what it meant.

Milo turned his head forward and disappeared around the corner from where he had come.

Delia made sure that they had everything and then pulled the door closed and tested: it wouldn't open. They hoped that that meant everything was fine and there was no need to go back for the moment. They made their way to the gate, which like earlier, opened for them and they went through it and closed it behind them. They walked and as they walked, Delia looked over at Xander and she could the loosening of the reigns that were holding him in place. She sent two words to him in his head: _let go_.

Alexander ran, getting far enough away from the house in case Paul and the others came back early. He was nearly at the car when he fell to his knees, leaned foward on his hands and vomited, wanting to get out all that poison that he could feel inside of him and he kept going until he had nothing left to throw up.

The next thing he knew, he was sobbing in his sister's arms. He wanted out of this place. He wanted to be home, hanging out in the woods with the dogs, or sitting at the kitchen table while Cecile puttered around in the kitchen making him lunch. He wanted to be in their chapel where he could feel God, whole and pure. He wanted to be alone with Delia in one of their bedrooms making love to her, listening to her whisper his name in his ear and feeling her arms around him. But more than anything, Alexander wanted his father. The last time he had wanted his father this much, he had been tied in a chair, narrowly avoiding getting raped and murdered and then, like now, he was terrified that he would never lay eyes on his father again.

Delia was stroking his hair, telling him that once everything was done here, they could go home; but he knew that might not be the case, but for now, he let himself believe what she was saying and he let it comfort him.

The sobbing subsided and he wiped the snot and tears off of his face and he shakily got to his feet. "Delia..."

She got up, smoothed the hair away from his face and leaned up and kissed him on the mouth. "I can wait until we get back to the hotel. You just be as okay as you can be."

Delia drove them back into the city, sending her love to Xander as he sat in the front seat beside her, his head against the window, silently crying.

They walked as quickly as they could through the lobby, hoping not to draw attention to themselves. They would have preferred to take the stairs, less chance of anyone running into them, but neither had the energy. They knew that the way Milo stank had not been just them because the people on the elevator with them had made faces like Delia and Alexander had stepped in something.

On the ride up, Alexander contained himself, made himself strong for his sister, because just as she had felt him begin to unravel, so could he feel Delia begin to let go of her control.

One foot inside their room and Delia went running to the bathroom and had just barely made it to the toilet when she began throwing up.

Alexander hung out the DO NOT DISTURB sign, closed the door and locked it and then went to her; she was trying to vomit and get undressed at the same time, but it wasn't working.

"Delia, throw up now, undress later."

And she took her brother's advice and stopped trying to take off her clothes and focused on puking up everything, all the evilness that she had felt while she had been in the house...she wanted to purge it all from her body. Like Alexander, she stopped when she had nothing else to vomit up.

Alexander had taken off his clothing and helped his sister to her feet and helped her get undressed. He turned on the shower and and made sure that it was hot, but bareable and he and Delia got in and she collapsed down the side of the shower, sobbing and shaking as Alexander had done earlier.

He held her as she cried and and he made the same promise to her that she had made to him...that they would go home when all of this was done, except Alexander pushed down the rage that wanted to boil over and be unleashed on anyone and everyone responsible for his sister's emotional meltdown...Paul, the boy, _them_...he would have liked nothing more than to kill Paul with his bare hands, but he replaced the rage for Paul with love for his sister and sent that to her and soon she coughed and sniffled and wiped the snot and tears from her face and with her brother's help, got to her feet.

Both stood under the hot water wanting to wash away all that they had endured at the boy's house, but it felt like it would be seared into their flesh forever.

Eventually, the got out of the shower and dried themselves off. Next, they put on their pyjamas and Alexander called downstairs and ordered a pot of tea, chicken noodle soup, toast and ginger ale and fifteen minutes later there was a knock at the door.

While Alexander had been ordering food, Delia had taken the clothes that they had been wearing and stuffed them into one of the garbage bags and when the man arrived with their food, she handed him the bag and told him to throw it away.

They ate in silence, for there were no words and both were too tired to talk. Alexander looked at the clock; it was nearly seven-thirty. Paul would be back at the house by now...they would deal with Paul tomorrow, but tonight they needed rest.

Once everything was eaten, Alexander pushed the cart outside and made sure the sign was on the door and both of them went into the bathroom to brush their teeth.

It was still light outside and the room was fairly bright, even with the curtains drawn. Delia was already in bed, shivering and barely able to keep her eyes open, but she was waiting for Alexander to come to join her before she would fall asleep. They would sleep in the same bed, neither cared who came in and saw them.

Delia wrapped herself around her brother and he held her tightly and as the two of them fell asleep, they knew Paul would be there in the morning, hopefully to answer the one word that each had uttered while they had fallen apart in the other's arms...

Why?


	6. The Boy

**Chapter Six**

 **The Boy**

At first, Delia didn't think she had been asleep that long. It was bright in the room, just like when she had fallen asleep. She turned over and looked at the clock; it was six-thirty and for a moment, she couldn't understand how she had woken up before she had fallen asleep, but then it dawned on her; it was six-thirty in the morning and she had been asleep for nearly twelve hours.

She heard the toilet flush and then the sound of running water and then Alexander came out of the bathroom. He sat down on the bed.

"How are you?"

Delia sat up and shrugged. "I've been better. Do I look as bad as you do?"

Alexander's normally bright, tanned skin looked gray and sallow and he had bags under his eyes; he looked like he hadn't slept in weeks.

"I think we both need about a week's worth of sleep. Hungry?"

As if on cue, Delia's stomach rumbled.

"Starving. Yesterday I think I puked up everything I ever ate."

"What would you like?"

Delia only shrugged again, too exhausted to put in the mental effort to pick something out for breakfast.

Alexander ordered room service, triple of everything...cereal, toast, bacon, fruit, juice, coffee, tea, water, several cans of cola and once it was all arrived, they ate. Even Delia, who was no great consumer of traditional breakfast fare, ate. Slowly, but she ate.

Once they were done, Alexander pushed the cart into the hall, and as Delia watched him close the door and come back to her, she was filled with an ache and a loneliness that threatened to consume her. She wanted him. To feel him against her, to be inside of her, to be one with him. To put her forehead against his and make colours and float away to that place inside of themselves where each only let in the other.

She reached out to Alexander, but he shook his head.

"We can't. Paul will be here soon, we have to have this shit figured out, and I want to take a shower."

"Alright." She stood to come go with him.

"I want to be alone. I won't be long."

Delia sat again as he went into the bathroom, closing the door behind him, and she sat feeling more alone than she ever had in her entire life.

He was right when he had said that he wasn't going to be long, but then again, they hadn't been in there together, distracting each other. She had wanted a shower as well, one, she had hoped, that would have come after lovemaking. She herself wasn't long, and she quickly dried off, dressed, and joined Alexander at the table.

Alexander had emptied out the contents of the knapsack, but didn't know where to start, it was all too much to take in and comprehend. He picked up the photo of the boy's room and stared at it.

Delia felt horrible for her brother. That _she_ was depressed and her mood leaden was one thing, she was used to being the family Eeyore; but feeling it from Alexander just made everything worse. She gingerly took the photo from him and looked at it and then looked at her brother.

"That's a horrible color to paint a room. Color Therapy 101? Never paint your bedroom red; that equals rage. Maroon from floor to ceiling." Delia shook her head. "It's like he's trying to keep himself in a state of constant anger. It must be angry bees in his head 24/7."

Alexander turned around the picture of Damien and Kate's tombstone. "I can't imagine...no Damien. No football games in the backyard, no Thanksgiving BBQs at Thomas's. Fuck, I can almost taste his chicken and Cecile's ribs. No good night tuck ins. No lectures about crap...I'd give anything to be in the study and have him going off on me over something." He stared at the picture. "This is about wanting parents, but it's also about blaming Kate for Damien's death. How much do you want to make a bet that he hates women?"

"Sorry, but that's a losing bet."

"We understand that she tried to kill Damien because he killed Peter; we get that. I don't hate her for trying to kill him, but..."

"...we haven't been stewing in our own crap for seventeen years. Who knows what those disciples have been telling him."

Alexander picked up a photo, intending to begin perusing the stack of pictures that they had taken in the room, when something suddenly occurred to him.

"What if Paul...Paul said it wasn't that easy to just give up control of whatever was going on...then he brought up Damien's son. I thought that it was just letting us know that Damien had a child here, but, what if the boy is the one pulling the strings? What if he is the one in charge?"

"Why?"

Alexander shrugged. "That boy is the Antichrist reborn, what else would Paul do but be at the beck and call of the one whose in charge of all of this." He looked at the pictures again. "I said that this was the bedroom of a serial killer. Whom do they idolize?"

"Usually other serial killers."

He picked up the picked of Adolf Hitler and showed it to his sister. "Okay, well these aren't pictures of Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer; these are pictures of some of the most destructive and hateful humans to ever walk the face of the Earth. If the boy, admires, which is the wrong word but I'll use it anyway, these lunatics..."

Delia frowned. "He's not just not prophesying Armageddon, he's actively trying to make it happen. But why? That's not what Satan wants. He wants followers. He wants to make what _they_ have, His."

"I think Paul and the boy are using two different play books and I don't think Paul truly understands how fucked up Damien's son is."

Delia was silent and then locked eyes with her brother. "How long do you think Damien has been there?"

"I don't know. I hate the thought that he's up there on display; it's so gross and vulgar."

"Everything about this place is gross and vulgar. We still haven't got to a satisfactory answer concerning the boy and his procreation. We do you think Paul didn't warn us about what we'd find in the chapel?"

"Maybe he didn't think that it would bother us."

Delia was about to protest, but thought better of it. After all, the boy didn't find it objectionable that his father's body was on display like some kind of horrific museum piece, rather than in the ground or in a coffin in the Thorn mausoleum.

Alexander picked up the other pictures, leaving the ones of Damien's body alone for now, and

focused on three of them. They weren't the best quality, they had themselves been instant pictures, and looked at them until he understood what he was seeing and quickly put them back on the table.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"I felt you, that wasn't nothing." She reached for the pictures but Alexander stopped her.

"Don't."

"Don't you dare hide things from me! We're in this shitstorm together and I want to know!"

Alexander picked up the pictures and tossed them to her, sending them fluttering onto Delia's side of the table.

One by one, she picked up them up. It was a woman...pretty, except for the fact that she was clearly dead. The next photo, the same woman, but in a more advanced stage of decomposition. The third photo, still further decomposed. It just wasn't that the boy had taken pictures of the woman, more likely than not, he had killed her, it was that both she and Alexander recognized the black background; she had been left to rot in the chapel.

"With all due sincerity, Alexander, I want to go the fuck home. Like now."

Delia was on the verge of tears. All of this was starting to be too much for her, and in her heart of hearts, it was looking like going home was becoming less and less of an option. But if she couldn't go home, she wanted Alexander, who while he was sitting only arm's length away, seemed to be farther from her than their father, her house, her dog, and a life she wanted to get back to more than anything.

"I know, but we have to keep working on this."

She gave him a thin smile. "I know. It's just..."

Delia usually felt tongue tied around others, she had not inherited her father and brother's golden tongues, but for the first time in her life, she couldn't express herself to her own brother, lover, confident, and best friend. What the fuck was going on?

Alexander took a breath. "Okay, let's start at the beginning. I'm Satan and somehow I make it so my son can conceive where Kate conceived a child." He looked across at Delia. "Damien tells you that that's how you came into the world...how does it make you feel?"

"I don't want to feel it, or think about it for that matter."

"Delia, think of how Damien raised us. When we were little, he told us that we were Thorn's, we were special. We behaved well in public because people had to see that Thorn's behaved better than other people; _but_ what he was really saying was that you are a part of Satan, and you will behave better than people do to show them that Lucifer is not some out of control lunatic who makes girls do things with crosses."

"It's like the boy is everything that Damien despises about...it's satanism! It's like some stupid teenage boy's messed up understanding of Satan. We use people like that and then we kill them because they're useless. He must be so lonely; he doesn't have anyone, not really anyway."

"Assuming that the body doesn't serve some other purpose."

"You think it could be totemic?"

"It's possible. You could feel it in that room; there's something going on in there. That abhorrent melding of us and them. It's like they've hijacked that room...it's like they've hijacked the boy...what?" Alexander stared at Delia.

She had gotten up to get another can of soda from the refrigerator, but she had stopped. Her hands were on her mouth, fists balled up as if she wanted to stuff back down what she had to say.

"Delia, you're freaking me out. What is it?" Alexander got up and came over to his sister.

"Satan can't do that. He had to possess a jackal to make Damien," her voice was a whisper. She was pleading with her eyes; begging her brother to figure out what she was trying to get at without saying the words.

"I know, we've gone over that already. So how Satan was able to do it in this instance is beyond me."

" _He_ didn't."

And it was like getting hit over the head with a mallet and he could feel the blood drain from his face. He stumbled back and nearly fell over the chair before he somehow managed to sit his ass on it. "Oh God."

"I knew they were evil, Xander. Low, deceitful, conniving, they're all of those things and more, but this is...what they've done to that poor boy."

Alexander had his eyes closed. "Their god did this. He made that baby. He made Kate have a baby...and give birth that way. Why? Please tell me why they would do such a thing?"

Delia could feel her own hate radiating off of her. "Because _they're_ them, that's why. They're filthy, Xander and if ever there was anything that proves it, it's this. Why? Maybe...what would have happened to Damien's soul?"

"It goes back to Satan; becomes part of the whole again. Like what will happen with our father and with us."

"So maybe, if they could control the vessel through which Damien would be reborn..."

"Then they can control the situation."

" _They_ want nuclear war?"

Alexander shook his head. "Not war. A little fallout maybe, lose a few million people, but who cares. That boy is on a path of self-destruction, all of it orchestrated by _them_. He's so unstable, it's a wonder he's managed to hang on till now. The daggers? Someone, and my money would have been on Paul, eventually would have gone looking for those things to kill that boy. He's lying to all of his disciples. Whoever they are, he's selling them a bill of goods."

"Or maybe whatever disciples he does have are as...nihilistic as he is."

Delia got her can of soda, opened it, and came back to the table, but she couldn't take a drink. She locked eyes with Alexander, no longer able to delay the inevitable.

"We're here to kill him."

"The only question becomes whether I'm here to replace him, or if Satan at some point down the line starts again."

A ringing phone brought them back to reality and Delia picked up and after telling the front desk person okay, she hung up.

"Paul?"

"It's show time."

Moments later there was a knock on the door and Alexander went to answer it.

"Good morning." Paul came in and smiled at them.

"Morning. How did it go yesterday?" Alexander closed the door behind him.

"He was happy. He asked me why he could go out and I told him that the Nazarene wouldn't be looking for him at the picture shows. How did it go for you?"

"It was an eye opening experience, Paul."

Both Delia and Alexander could feel Paul's sudden escalation of fear.

"There's no reason to be afraid, but we need you to understand what we found, because what you've seen...you either don't understand, or can't accept. Sit."

Paul sat at the table while Alexander rearrange and picked up the photos, placing two in front of Paul, the one of Damien and the one of Kate's headstone.

"First, the color of that room? Not good. Red is an angry color, Paul. Do you know what color prisons, hospitals and psych wards _aren't_? Red. Why? Because those places want calm individuals so what you don't do is paint your walls a color that makes people irritable. It's like he's trying to keep himself in a constant state of excitement and frenzy and those walls will do it." Alexander put his finger on Damien's face. "He wants a dad, and I think we both know how badly." Alexander put his finger over Kate's grave. "He wants a mother, but that is also about blaming Kate for Damien's death."

Paul looked up at him, but it was Delia who spoke.

"We don't blame Kate. Damien killed her son, she did what was normal, she wanted revenge and here...it worked. The nazarene? There's your killer because nobody would have been in that church if it wasn't for him and his lie."

Alexander laid out the other photos. "You confirmed that you were a part of what was going on. You left out the part where the boy is in charge of everything."

"I'm the legman, as it were; I run everything past him."

"Well, you're both using different playbooks, Paul. Do you have serial killers here?"

"Yes."

"Well, this is the bedroom of a serial killer. And whenever they arrest the psycho, they have the cameras rolling in his house and that is what his bedroom looks like. If he had pictures on his walls of Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, the victims of Jack the Ripper, or other dead girls." Alexander put out the pictures of the woman. "I wouldn't care; let him sit in his room and do whatever floats his boat, but...Hitler, Stalin, images of mass destruction on an epic scale? He wants to blow up the world Paul, destroy the human race and himself right along with it. Am I correct in assuming that the original plan was to have him run Thorn?"

Paul could only nod.

"They're clouding your mind too, Paul, because you are smarter than this." Delia came over to him. "He's insane; certifiably out of his everloving mind. Put that boy in charge of a company that makes, among other things, nuclear weapons, and he'd blow up the world and be happy as a pig in shit while he did it. The prophecy about the world ending, your nightmares, that adds up to them messing with you."

"He wants destruction." Paul shook his head. "How could I have been so blind?"

"Love, a desire to see Damien back in his rightful place, them inside of you head." Alexander shrugged. "It was easy for them to manipulate you."

Delia sat at the table across from Paul. "You wanna know how Satan creates a child without a womb? He doesn't. _They_ made him."

Paul looked from one to other. "What? No. Why? Why do that?"

"Some disciples, maybe most, join us because to them, satanism is an excuse to behave like naughty children and be "evil," but that's not what Satan is about. You know as well as we do, that we take what we can get; we use people like that and then we kill them. However, _they're_ the evil ones, Paul. _They've_ destroyed that poor boy in order to sideline Satan for, what? A year, a hundred years, a thousand? If _they_ could start by having the boy born in such a manor...it's gross and foul, and you don't need to imagine what it does to someone, because you've been watching it for seventeen years.

"Then once he's born, who's in charge of him? The worse kinds of disciples possible, and who knows what kind of crap they've been filling his head with. And for most of that time, he hasn't been alone up here." Alexander tapped the side of his head. " _T_ _hey're_ gone now, but their presence lingers, a stench that sits on that boy's soul. If everyone believes that the nazarene is still out there, then he's tucked away, a shut-in who, again, is then surrounded by the wrong kind of people. Then _they_ manipulate him, you, anyone else they can, play on your desire for Damien to be back. _They_ make him unstable and someone, probably you, gets tired of it and kills him the proper way and sends him back to Satan. But most importantly, they make him so lonely and miserable, he _wants_ to go home, by any means necessary." Alexander put down the picture of Damien in the chapel.

Paul looked away.

"My sister's older than I am and I would still bank on her kicking my ass in a fight, but I'm highly protective of Delia and I had to watch her get very upset at the sight of...our father on display like some kind of horror show. Why is it up there?"

"I don't know, but he prays up there...holding its hand. I don't know if he gets power from it or he only thinks that and he just misses having a father."

"Alexander, I think it's safest to assume that he needs that body, that somehow there is a tether between the two of them. We would be putting Damien's body to rest anyway, so let's begin with it. If he's drawing nourishment from the body, then we need to ween him from that corpse by getting rid of Damien first. Maybe the shock of the loss of his...power source will weaken or kill him."

"He'll die?"

"We're conduits. There is a connection between Satan and us. Well, for that boy, the conduit is damaged. He thinks he's doing God's work, but he's really doing _theirs_. We can't fix him, he needs to go back home, back to Satan to be made whole and that's what we're here to do. Whether or not I'm meant to replace him is irrelevant. The boy has to die. He's tool for them right now and that has to come to an end."

Paul picked up one of the pictures of the woman, "She was a reporter. She apparently came snooping around Pereford and the boy killed her; thought she was there to seduce him, sent by the nazarene, like Kate supposedly seduced Damien. He...he killed her and I asked him how he had disposed of her and he told me he did what came natural for him...what comes naturally for a jackal."

It was several minutes before anyone could say anything. Alexander picked up the chair and moved it closer to Paul and sat again. "You know as well as we do that if the nazarene had come looking for him, that house wouldn't have provided any protection. He's there for you, because you recognized that there was something wrong with him from the get go. You wanted him where you could control him, but that control has gotten away from you...if you ever had it in the first place."

"Yes."

"Where's the nearest church from the house?"

Paul turned to Delia. "There is a church not more than a twenty minute walk from the house."

"Do you have the daggers?"

"Not yet...I'm looking." He stared at Alexander.

"You have one week to find them. Do you have disciples you can trust; ones who don't have a connection to the boy?"

"Yes."

"Then get them on it."

"I will. We'll talk later?"

"When you have the daggers, call us."

Paul nodded at Alexander. "Will do."

Paul left and it was just the Thorn's alone in the room. Delia sat on the couch and drew her knees up to her chest. "He's an animal, Xander, an animal on two legs that feels more comfortable being jackal than Man."

"He ate her."

"Don't say that, please don't ever say those words out loud ever again. It's beyond gross." They sat in silence until Delia got up. "I'm going for a walk."

"Okay."

"Can I bring you back anything?"

"Something for dinner...if I can eat by then."

"How's pizza?"

"Sounds good."

"I'll be back."

And Delia turned her back on her brother and left for her walk, shutting the door behind her.

 **...666…**

It was five days later, as Delia and Alexander slept in their own beds, that a ringing phone rudely jerked them awake in the middle of the night.

Alexander answered it and hung up moments later.

Delia sat up. "Paul?"

"He's on his way up."

They got up, turned on some lights and grabbed robes and put them on. They were cinching the belts around their waists when there was a knock on the door. Alexander went to open it.

"Sorry about the hour."

"Not at all." Alexander noticed the Paul was carrying a small leather satchel. "Are those what I think they are?"

Paul opened up the bag and placed its contents on the table...six very lethal looking knives with the figure of Christ on them. Delia and Alexander each picked up one of the Daggers of Megiddo and examined them.

"And you know where the seventh one is."

It was only recently that Damien had allowed his children to know where the daggers were kept and to actually physically handle them and now, as when she had held them for the first time, she felt ill touching them, knowing why they had been created. But it was watching her brother, her sacred charge, handle the knives that was seriously starting to make her feel queasy.

"Okay, that's enough." She grabbed the dagger out of her brother's hand and put it back on the table.

"Where did you find them?"

"Luckily, five of them were in London...in Scotland Yard in the Black..."

"...Museum. We went there when we came to England for the first time. The other?"

"From DeCarlo."

As if pulled by invisible strings, both Thorn's turned to face Paul.

"He's alive?"

Paul smirked at Delia. "Not anymore. I sent one of our people to infiltrate the monastery and get the dagger. They put the old man out of his misery."

Paul left, there was a meeting that could not be missed, but he told them that he would meet them here the day after that and then they would go to Pereford.

Delia and Alexander sat and began to work out a plan, as best they could seeing as how they couldn't plan for the variable, the boy, and when the sun came up hours later, they were still working at it.

 **...666...**

Two days later found them in the exact spot where they had been watching and waiting for Paul and the others to leave the house, but today, Paul was with them. They stood by the cars, Paul had come in his own car and Delia and Alexander in theirs, waiting for the dog to take his master for a walk.

The dog would leave with the boy and then they would drive to the house, get Damien's body and recover the last dagger. Paul would bring Damien to the church and properly put Damien to rest. Delia and Alexander would then get the boy to the church and kill him and then it would all be over. They just hoped that the plan would go off as easy as they wanted it to.

All of them stood outside the car, looking at the house, waiting for the dog to do his part...

 **...666...**

The boy stood outside the chapel and closed the door. He was bathed in sweat and the black cassock he was wearing reeked with the perspiration of endless hours holding onto his father's hand and praying, gaining strength and seeking guidance.

If it were up to him, he wouldn't shower. He pointed out to Paul, who had remarked during one of his visits that the boy stank, that animals didn't shower, but Paul reminded him that he was to take over Thorn one day and he needed to look the part. The boy smiled at Paul's ignorance as he made his way downstairs, and in his room, he stripped naked, went to the bathroom and took a shower and eventually got dressed and came downstairs.

George turned and smiled at the boy. "Just in time for lunch, sir."

He gave George and nod, and then went out to the dining room and sat at the table and waited for lunch to be brought to him. Moments after he sat, his dog came in and took his usual spot under the table, near his master.

George first brought out soup, which the boy attacked as if he were starving. Time in the chapel always made him hungry and he shoveled the soup in his mouth as if he hadn't seen food in days.

George internally winced as soup ran down the boy's chin; he didn't correct him. George knew that sometimes, it was better to let some things go sometimes rather than be overly critical, and he watched as the boy used his left arm to wipe the soup of his chin rather than the very tasteful and expensive cloth napkin that sat unused on the table. George turned away and went back out into the kitchen to bring the rest of the boy's meal.

He returned with two chicken salad sandwiches and a carafe of white wine. The boy devoured the first sandwich as he done with the soup, but he seemed to gain some kind of control over himself and slowed down with the second one.

But even while he slowed down, he savored nothing. Anyone else would have remarked on the quality of the soup, fresh made from somewhere in London, brought into the house every other day with the other groceries from the city. The sandwiches...George's father had been a cook, and a very good one at that, and had taught his son the art of making good comfort food and very few things were better than soup and sandwiches for lunch; tasty, flavorful, good without being drowned in mayonnaise, but the boy commented on none of it as he put the last of the sandwich into his mouth and finished it off with a gulp of wine. He belched loudly...he was sated for now. He would go upstairs to his room until he would go back into the chapel.

He rose and made his way towards the dining room exit, but realized that the dog was not with him and turned back around.

The dog was by the other door, the one leading to the kitchen. The boy called for the dog without using words, but the dog sat there not moving. Again, the boy called for the dog, but still he sat.

"Come."

The order was harsh and demanding, but the beast did not obey his master.

The boy went to the dog and opened the door and the dog headed down the hallway and looked back at the boy, who followed the dog down the stairs to the door leading out back. The dog looked up at the boy, who turned the handle of the door. The dog turned around and sat in the doorway.

At first the boy thought that the dog wanted out, which he did, but it was clear that he wanted his master with him...he sat in the doorway...seemingly so that the boy could not shut the door on him. **

The boy's demeanour changed and his eyes narrowed and he sniffed the air. He looked back down at the dog. The boy knew when the dog sensed prey or a threat...he smiled at the thought of the woman who had come here trying to tempt him as his mother had done with Damien...the dog had been very keen to go out and help his master subdue the intruder...but the dog was just staring at him.

The boy reached down and began pulling on his boots. It was very warm outside and there was no need for a jacket.

The boy stepped outside and only then did the dog move out of the doorway. The dog lead the boy towards the woods and to anyone would didn't know better, it would have looked like a teenaged boy taking his dog for a walk. He had not told George where he was going, but George saw them out of the window and watched as the boy and dog got further away and then disappear inside the woods.

From around the other side of the house, Delia and Alexander looked at each other and got into the car. Paul did the same and they drove up to the house. As they approached the gate, Delia and Alexander saw that it was manned. A tiny smile sat on Delia's lips and she reached out with her mind and moments later, the guard, who had been visible in the tiny guard shack window, could now now longer been seen.

Delia got out of the car and opened the gate and got back into the car and both vehicles approached the house and once Alexander stopped the car, he and Delia took off up the stairs to the front door, which liked the gate, opened up for them without having to be first unlocked.

George had heard the sound of the door and at first smiled at Paul's arrival, but then looked nervously at the two young people, the girl with a knapsack on her back, who ran up the stairs.

"What is happening, sir?"

"George, you will come with me."

"But..."

"That's not a request, George."

"Very well, sir."

Both men were standing near the door when, less than ten minutes, the siblings returned carrying something wrapped in a sheet; it looked like a mummy. The boy had another sheet thrown over his shoulder. The girl had been crying.

George turned to Paul, who looked away from the pair who were now making their way out the door and Paul answered George's unasked question. "You don't want to know."

The trunk of Paul's car was open and Alexander moved his left shoulder and then Paul understood that the sheet was for his car. He put down the sheet and the two of them gently placed Damien's body in the trunk. They were talking, saying that it would all be good and soon he would be home and then Paul realized that they were talking to Damien.

Both siblings reached out and touched him through the sheet and closed their eyes, but then Delia took off the knapsack and handed it to Paul.

When Alexander opened his eyes, he looked at Paul. "You will do nothing until you get the signal from the dog. Then you will destroy the body. Are you still okay with all of this?"

"Of course." Paul looked back at the house and was silent for a moment. "I was so happy when he was born...such hopes. He would be the next Damien and it would be like it always was, but..." Paul turned and looked at them.

Alexander turned to George. "You don't know me. Paul will explain all this to you, but know this; if you in anyway, shape or form try to stop what is going on, then either Delia or I will kill you were you stand." Alexander turned back to Paul to make him understand that George needed to get with the program or suffer the consequences. Paul nodded, told George to get in the car, which he did and Paul drove away.

Delia and Alexander went back into the house and headed to the kitchen. Alexander grabbed a glass from one of the cupboards and turned on the tap so he could get some cold water. He drank it and then turned to Delia.

"You know, if we fuck up, that's us out of the will and I don't mean the one that leaves us the silverware and father's original print of _Godzilla_."

"I know, but from what we've seen...this is what Satan wants."

"Why us?"

Delia shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe Satan can't kill him. Maybe we're being tested. Or, if the boy is Damien reborn...could you kill your own son?"

"I asked Damien that when I was twelve, if I turned my back on Satan, would I die? Damien said he didn't know, but that he wouldn't be him because he couldn't kill me."

"As for us us...I don't know, but we should feel privileged to be doing this. God chose us to do this. Out of all the other usses that Satan could have picked to do this, He picked you and me."

Alexander gave a hollow laugh. "The same kind of privilege that victims of human sacrifice should feel right before they get tossed into the volcano?"

"Xander, it's not like that. But I understand. This goes against everything that we know...but he's a tool for _them_ and therefore a danger to himself, to Satan and possibly us, if what happened or would have happened here, would have an effect on our timeline somehow."

Delia stared vacantly out the window, no longer able to ignore the thought that had been swirling around her head for the past few days. She turned to look at her brother.

"Alexander, if it comes to it...you will let me die."

"I don't want it to come to that, but..."

"I know."

The pair of them sat at the table, silent, each lost in their own thoughts until...they could hear the back door open, followed by footsteps and a pause...

 **...666...**

They walked through the woods; the dog hadn't done much but sniff around and turn over a log or two and eat stuff that was underneath.

The boy found himself being jealous of the dog. He would have loved to take off all of his clothes, dropped to all fours and ran around, letting his baser instincts guide him. He grinned. The last time he had gotten naked and come outside and made like an animal...that woman wouldn't be able to tempt him ever again.

They walked, going deeper into the woods, until suddenly, the dog turned around and made for home. The boy watched the dog run ahead of him and then stop and turn around...something was up with the animal and the boy didn't like it. They were almost back at the house when the dog began sniffing the ground and had apparently caught scent of something and took off after it. He would be back soon.

The boy opened up the back door and stiffened. Something was...wrong wasn't the right word, but something was different. There was someone in the house and it was neither George nor Paul.

He felt something...he could not put his finger on it. It was like he could vaguely feel...himself, but that was impossible...unless...the boy was overcome with the irrational feeling that his father had come back to life. He took off up the stairs and was surprised to find two teenagers, the same age as himself sitting at the table.

What was going on?


	7. The Meeting

**Chapter Seven—The Meeting**

Delia and Alexander had only seen the boy from a distance and had responded to his resemblance to their father; but the distance had spared them from what they were now experiencing, which was taking all the self-control each of them possessed to keep their thoughts and feeling to themselves and not have any kind of visible reaction to him.

The plan was for Alexander to talk to the boy. They were both male, and hopefully that would put him at ease. However, as he sat there, Alexander wondered if he was going to be able to do anything because the boy's presence was so jarring. On the surface, he was handsome, like Damien, with that same severe part in his hair that his father once had, and the same sharp blue eyes. However, it was only the physical aspects he shared with his father. Apart from other things, the boy lacked Alexander's and his father's natural ability to put people at ease. No doubt owing to the fact that for starters, the boy probably hadn't been taught much social etiquette, or wasn't aware of his body language; but there was something else. It was like the boy was made up of two halves that didn't go together, or like trying to view an object in a shattered mirror. Alexander wanted to look away from the boy, but kept smiling at him.

Delia also sat there trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, but she was also finding it difficult to be in his presence. If there had been any doubt up until this point that he was the cause of everything wrong here, those doubts were swept aside. He was a nuclear reactor leaving a cloud of toxic waste in his wake.

But worst of all for both of them was that horrible disjunction between what they were seeing and feeling: the face of Damien...father, love, caring, warmth, kindness and _them_...everything that both of them hated for, in Delia's case, half her life. To both run away and run towards...but they sat and smiled.

"Hey. I'm Alexander; that's Delia," Alexander tried to keep the tone informal, but warm. Too friendly, and the boy would know something was up.

The boy stood there staring, looking from one to the other.

Alexander smiled. "Yeah, I know, we don't understand it either. One morning, we were in one of the plants at work, the next thing we know...we were here."

For now, they had decided to keep mum on the fact that in their world, Damien was alive.

"Where's George?"

It was odd to hear Damien talk with an English accent, he had long ago lost his, and to sound so young. Alexander only shrugged. "I don't know. Paul dropped us off and then he took George and left...probably so we could have some privacy."

"We're thirsty...may we have something to drink?"

And it was like he _noticed_ her first time. She sat, smiling up at him, trying to look younger than she was and to rid herself of her authority in order to look and feel as non-threatening as possible. She was both the ace up their sleeve and their greatest liability. Paul had told them that he had spent little time with people his own age, and he disliked women and had warned them that he might react badly to Delia, but Paul didn't understand, and neither did they explain it him, that they saw each other differently than they saw people. For the first time in his life, even if he only vaguely felt it, he would be staring at others who looked like him...a female who looked liked him.

He came over to the both of them and they remained sitting, which was difficult for them to do. They were their father's children and they wanted to stand their ground, literally; but sitting there allowed him to think that he was holding all the cards which was fine with Delia and Alexander.

He turned his attention to Delia, taking her in from head to toe. Alexander could only imagine what it was like for her, being checked out by someone that was, for all intents and purposes, her father. Alexander had to fight his instincts to back him off, but that would have looked strange, so both Delia and he just let him do what he wanted. For now.

He moved away from Delia and went to one of the cupboards, got three glasses, went to the fridge and pulled out a pitcher of yellow liquid that Delia and Alexander guessed was lemonade. He poured it, came back to the table and handed out the glasses. He then sat. Delia and Alexander reached for theirs and took a sip; it was delicious. His hand reached out for the glass and then he stopped, as if was adjusting himself and then kept reaching for the glass and then daintily brought it up to his lips.

"It's very good." Alexander took another sip.

"George made it."

He turned to Delia...waiting for her opinion? Hoping to impress her? They weren't sure which. They could feel his attraction to her, but mixed in to it were healthy doses of shame, disgust and hate for her. Neither Delia nor Alexander let on that they could feel what he felt, though he either was not aware that he could tune into them, or the connection inside himself was so broken, he was no longer capable of fully feeling something that was like himself.

"It's very good...like Cecile's. She's our cook. Alexander makes lemonade...well limeade I guess since I prefer limeade...over...um...lemonade," Delia's voice had trailed off at the end, both feeling worried and stupid for _her_ inability to make small talk.

The boy looked at Alexander and didn't bother hiding his distaste that Alexander bothered himself with something as plebeian as making limeade. The silence between the three was overwhelming, but it seemed to only bother Delia and Alexander.

"If you don't mind, we'd like a tour of the house. It's beautiful."

Under normal circumstances, Alexander's comment would have been bullshit, but Delia sensed in Alexander a genuine interest in the boy and he smiled at Alexander.

"Okay, then let's go."

He began the tour in the cellar, which they had seen already when then they were here the first time. They took each floor in turn and every time, the boy pointed things out, or explained things to Delia first, but he spoke more frequently and more profusely with Alexander. He took them through the house, showing the siblings things that they had already seen when they had come on their own. On the second floor, they skipped his bedroom and the stairs going up to the chapel. He took them up to the other parts of the house, places that they hadn't bothered with when they had come here before.

They moved outside the house and they explored the grounds. He pointed out areas that he liked to walk in and as they walked, the trio became a pair, with Delia sticking out like a sore thumb. They walked ahead of her, every once in a while, one or the other would look back at her and sometimes, they'd laugh.

Delia frowned. What could they be talking about? And then fear gripped her... _what if he tells the boy about us._ She directed a laser beam of hate at him, but he didn't turn around, which confirmed for Delia what she and Alexander had suspected: that the boy was too broken to feel anything that was like himself.

And then there was her brother. Delia directed no such hate his way, not that she wasn't feeling it, but he _would_ be able to sense it and she wanted to keep things to herself. She always suspected that Alexander would have been happier with a brother and now she could see that it was pretty much the case as the two of them walked, talking in hushed voices like they were the best of friends.

It was an hour later that they found themselves back at the house, where Alexander offered to cook lunch for everyone and the boy went off to use the bathroom. He was was no sooner out of the kitchen, then Delia turned to Alexander.

"You two are certainly chummy."

"It's nothing."

"What did you two talk about?"

"Nothing."

Anger rose in Delia. "Don't give me nothing. That was a lot of giggling and chattering away like school girls. Are you going to start braiding each other's hair next? Did you tell him about Damien, about the plan...about us?"

He merely gave her a mysterious smile.

"Fuck you, Alexander." She turned away from him and no more did she begin to panic that the boy had gone up to chapel to check on Damien, then he came through the door.

"Why don't you let Delia make lunch. Isn't that women are supposed to do?"

"Because Delia can't cook. Isn't that right?" He looked at her.

She smiled darkly at him. "I don't cook. I do more important things like work." She turned and looked at the boy. "And I'm not a woman. You're not a man; I'm not a woman. And don't bother making me anything. I don't want anything you make." She addressed herself to her brother again.

Alexander only shrugged and continued making lunch.

Delia would have liked nothing more than to leave and go find Paul, but she didn't trust Alexander around the boy, so she plunked herself down at the kitchen table intent on keeping on eye on both of them.

Alexander eventually finished lunch, roast beef sandwiches and tomato soup, and put down plates in front of himself and the boy and they ate, all the while making conversation, with Alexander putting the boy in a better mood than he'd probably ever been in for his whole life, and as Delia sat there, watching and listening to the pair of them, she realized that she was jealous of the boy. It was an odd feeling, one that she had never experienced. Before she and Alexander had feelings for one another, she didn't care about any of the girls who liked him; and after, she knew that Alexander was hers and nothing any girl, or boy for that matter, could ever do would ever change that.

 _But that's not completely true, is it? You have some idea of what it feels like to be jealous, don't you?_ There was the woman who would be able to do the one thing that Delia knew in her gut, heart, and soul that she'd never get to do: bear children for Alexander. But for right, now she was seething green over the boy and his closeness with Alexander, for how long would it take until she was not only replaced, but gotten rid of?

"I said, don't you talk?"

"Delia's not much of a conversationalist."

"I don't do much of anything, do I? According to you, that is."

"When the time comes, you'll give your life for me, that's your work."

"What are you, anyway?"

Delia turned and looked at the boy. But...what was she, apart from her brother's protector? Every fear that Delia had about being useless came screaming to the surface of her mind, but she tried to push all that fear away, to speak with confidence about who and what she was. "I'm Damien Thorn's daughter. I bear the mark, so that makes me somebody."

The boy turned to Alexander. "Is this true?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

"Do you blame Kate for murdering Damien?"

"No."

The boy snorted. "You wouldn't. One bitch defending another."

"I blame the nazarene. Why was Damien in the church? The nazarene. Why were the daggers created? To kill Damien and make the world a safer place for the nazarene and his followers. It's logical that she killed him. He killed Peter, so she killed him."

"You'd side with some...person over your own kind?"

She felt Alexander's disgust. "I'm not siding with a person over anything, but it's understandable..."

"No, it's not understandable. She killed him, it shouldn't have happened. Damien Thorn should be alive, not rotting in a grave somewhere."

She smiled at the boy. She felt his deception, he didn't bother hiding it, but he had no clue that she could see through the lie.

"Do you know what's going on here?"

"The fact that the world is _this_ close to nuclear destruction...no, why don't you enlighten me."

"What do you think?"

"I think whoever's responsible for this is stupid, childish, self-centred and, most importantly, is going against what God wants."

"God?"

"Satan. Or don't you think of him as God? Or do you worship the nazarene's father? Maybe whoever's responsible for what's going on has forgotten Him in all of this."

"Satan wants destruction...my father wants destruction."

"Bullshit. When has Damien ever wanted destruction?"

"My father told me so. I do what he commands."

"Is that so? Damien tells you that, does he?"

"What do you think it's about?"

"What it's always been about...turning them from their god to ours."

The boy smirked, but Delia wasn't done.

"I'm not Paul, nor any other _person_ , so _I_ understand. It's about control; it's about giving them the illusion of choice and freedom. Their god gives the illusion of freedom, at least christians understand that part. They understand that there are consequences to their actions, but they are naïve children who look forward to some heartwarming homecoming with their father. They need to be reminded that they can't come home to him without excepting his precious nazarene first...his most important child...his favorite child. What does nuclear war get Satan? What does Satan win in that? Fuck all. Creating a new world won't be pretty, but it sure as shit won't be nuclear Armageddon. And it won't happen with Alexander, or his son, or his son's son. It will take generations of molding the human race to our way of thinking until the day comes that we reveal to them that their glorious new world is the result of Satan...not the christian god, not themselves, but Satan." She was standing now, leaning across the table, her voice now low, "and I know that for a fact, because that's what _my_ father told _me_."

It had come out before Delia could stop herself and while she let no reaction show on the outside, inside she was kicking herself for being so stupid. She could also feel Alexander's anger coming at her, and while she couldn't be certain exactly as to why Alexander was angry at her, it was clear that he hadn't told the boy anything.

Sadness and grief and sat in her heart and she now no longer cared if they stopped the boy or not; she had lost the love of her brother and as far as Delia was concerned, life was no longer worth living.

The change in the boy was remarkable. His face softened and he looked from Alexander to Delia.

"He's alive?"

"Yes, he raised us."

The boy sat there looking stunned. "She didn't kill him?"

Delia shook her head. "No. We didn't say anything earlier...Paul told us that Damien died...we didn't want to make you feel bad."

The boy sat there, a blank expression on his face and Delia didn't know how to continue. She cleared her throat, "He's a good father; he's the best father. He always made time for us. He came out to _Harvard_ to see Alexander's football games and my track meets. He used to go to parent/teacher conference night." She smiled. "You should have seen the looks on people's faces as he'd show up and take a seat at one of those tiny desks. You have no idea how many parents sent nannies or _au pairs_ to those things...or didn't bother with it at all. I got onto the honor roll the first term of high school and he came to pick me that day. After I told him, he took my hand, and we walked back into the school and my name was at the top of the list and he stood there with me. I was valedictorian, and Alexander was salutatorian at our graduation...no parent was prouder than Damien was of us. He never shooed us away when we were little and as we got older, we knew when to come and see him and when to leave him alone. He taught us Greek and Latin. He told us both who we were...who we really were. He encourages us. We'd do anything for him and not just because he's our father or the Antichrist, but because he's earned our devotion and love by being a good father."

While she had been telling the boy about Damien, she had been crying. She could feel the hate coming from her brother and she'd probably never see her father again. Delia's family was disappearing before her eyes and all of her deepest and darkest fears that she was nothing, an accident, or worse, were running rampant through her head.

She was watching the boy and logically she registered the look of loss, grief and loneliness etched on his face. She was trying to feel as sorry for him as she had earlier, but her sympathy for him was apparently a finite resource and it had been depleted.

He had closed his eyes and she could feel the agony that he wore on his face, but it began to shift and transform, first to jealousy and then seething hatred that came straight at Delia.

"Pathetic, absolutely pathetic. Love. Love is weakness. The world is pain and agony and anyone telling you any differently is lying. Anyone who purports to feel anything else is pathetic. What happened to him? Is that what being a father did to Damien Thorn, the Antichrist...the harbinger of Man's destruction? Turned him into some doddering sap who loves? I'm glad _my_ father died so I didn't have to see him sink to the depths that he has with you. He should be trying to wipe the miserable human race off the face of the planet...instead...he attends baseball games and goes to see your teachers? You can see that he's wrong, can't you?" He looked at Alexander.

Alexander had been doing a lot of thinking while he was with the boy, mostly about Delia. Their father had given her too much power and leeway and let her think that she was more important than she was. Sure she had the mark, but it meant nothing; it was there only so Damien would look after her. Delia's only job was giving her life for him if the situation ever arose. What had he been thinking all those years ago when he had went to her, his heart in his hands, and asked her permission for her sexual favours. She was his and what she had was his to take. He turned his attention to the boy.

"You're right. Damien spent far too much time doing things that had nothing to do with being the Antichrist. We could have done much more if he wasn't wasting his time being a father."

The boy smiled. "You're here now, and we can work together to bring about Man's destruction. What Damien does or doesn't do where he is is his problem. We're here and you and I can fix this." But he wasn't done; he looked at Delia. "That you bear the mark is a disgrace and a mistake."

"It was so Damien would look after her, but her only real job is dying for me should the time come. Our father spent far too much time taking care of Delia, worrying about her and taking time away from work, time away from me, to see to her."

"It's always women; they destroy greatness. Kate murdered Damien, she murders your father by stealing who he is, by making him vulnerable. By taking his time away from doing what he should be doing to..."

Alexander watched a smirk grow across the boy's mouth. "What? What is it?"

He stood. "Now I understand. How clever Damien was to have bred himself a daughter to use. What interesting things you and he must have gotten up to, being passed around to all those who couldn't have Damien. It was your duty to protect and serve your father and your brother and what you did for him, you will do for us."

It was all so clear to Alexander now. All the time she and Damien had spent together. How ready she had been to have sex in Damien's bed...no doubt to mock him. She had told him that there was no one else but him, but Aaron Chambers had wanted her from the time Delia had hit puberty. He wasn't sure about how much "passing around" had occurred, but Paul and Thomas spent a lot of time at the house. He had refrained from telling the boy about him and Delia, afraid the boy would take her from him, but they would share her and if she became too disobedient, they would simply get rid of her.

The boy was too far gone and Alexander was too much under the boy's influence to tune into the fact that Delia was quite literally out of her mind. She stood there shaking, not with fear, but with rage. She wore her nails short, but they were pressed so tightly against her palm, she had drawn blood. Delia had been taught to control her anger, but there would be no controlling it now. She let out a snarl and saliva flew from her mouth and she launched herself at the boy, knocking him back so that his head smacked the refrigerator door. Her hands were at his throat, choking him, smashing his head against the kitchen floor.

"Pathetic?" His head met tile. "I'm not the one who has my father's dead body in a chapel corrupting the house of God!" That same sound as Delia smashed his head into the floor again.

"I'm not the one who is so stupid, he doesn't know that the nazarene hasn't been reborn!" She had no intention of stopping; she would smash him to little bits for taking her family away from her...for turning Alexander against her.

The boy was in shock and once he regained some sense of himself, he tried to get into her mind but he couldn't, but the mention of Damien's body had filled him with terror, and he reached up and kept punching at Delia until she fell back and he skittered to his feet and ran out of the kitchen.

Delia tried to go after him, but she felt strong arms around her.

"No, no you don't. We're going to go to that church and get that body and put it back in the chapel where it belongs and take care of Paul. Then you and I are going to sit down and have a nice, long conversation about the nature of our relationship because things are going to change between us, Delia. I'm through with waiting for you, with asking for things. He's right. You're ours now, and we'll take what we want from you."

Delia only shrieked and fought and kicked at her brother, trying to get away.

There was cursing from upstairs and it was getting closer and the kitchen door was flung open and the boy stalked in, calling Delia every name he could think of.

"Where is he!?"

Delia snarled, spat at him, trying in vain to kick him.

"I know where he is. In the church not far from here."

The boy came forward, and grabbed Delia's face in his left hand.

"Hold on to her."

Alexander tightened his grip on Delia, his arms under her armpits as she bucked under the confinement trying to get to the boy.

"We've just started with you. There's rope. We'll tie her up and keep her here. Alexander, you and I will go get the body..."

"Paul's there, too."

"Traitor. Well, we'll deal with him, bring Damien back here, and then, your sister is going to find herself very occupied for the next few hours."

But he suddenly stopped talking, and then, a howl rang though the kitchen, and the boy collapsed onto the kitchen floor, a marionette whose strings had just been cut.

Slowly, a red haze began to lift from Delia's mind, and she looked around, and for a fraction of a second she was frantic because she couldn't see Alexander, but then she felt the arms around her, and it didn't take much movement on her part for his arms to fall away from her. She turned around to face him, and with one look at her brother, she broke down, tears running down her cheeks.

He had a vacant expression on his face, as if he were in a trance...as if he were lost and nobody would ever find him. His chest was barely rising and falling with his breathing. There was no point talking to him, so Delia did the only things she could do: she went inside his mind, and it didn't take long until she found him, the part of him that only the pair of them shared, and the second she found it, she felt her heart break all over again.

He was dark and muddy inside, dirty and polluted. His essence, his colors, were dimmed, flickering neon lights ready to go out for good at any second. She wasn't used to her brother being like this. He was the steady one, the rock, the sure footing when things in her life turned upside down and topsy turvy. She reached out, and she could feel as he pulled away from her, and she could feel it in the flesh world as well as he began to move away, but she put her hands behind his neck, pulled down, and put her forehead against his.

She shared all of herself with him, and reminded him of everything that they were to each other, twins, siblings, jackals, best friends, mates, lovers, spouses, each other's life, love, and reason for existing. She poured her colours into his, but still she felt him pull away: he was aware, fully cognisant of what he had done to her.

 _I love you, Nander, forever and for always. Help me fix_ _what's broken b_ _ecause I can't go on without you_.

And she held on to him, physically and every other way until he began to cave to her wishes, and she could feel him change inside, lightening, evening himself out until he felt like her brother. His colours were still dimmed, as hers were and would remain so until they could get out of here, or the boy no longer existed, or at least she hoped so, but for the most part, he was Alexander again. They stayed that way for some time until Delia felt that she could leave him on his own. When she pulled away, and opened her eyes, she could see that he still had his eyes closed, crying, too ashamed to look at her.

"Nander, please look at me."

"Deedle, I can't."

"It wasn't you, it was _them_." She had hated the nazarene and the so-called god before, for what _they_ had done to Damien, but _they_ had hurt her brother. She would give anything to be the one to hurt _them_ , to destroy _them_ , to eradicate _them_ out of the memory of every person on the planet...very, very painfully. "I need you."

He opened his eyes, which were puffy and red from crying.

"I'm so sorry."

He put his arms around her, and Delia put her head on his chest. She reached up and stroked his head, as best as she could given that he was now taller than she was.

"Nander you have nothing you have to be sorry for. I love you. I'll always love you. That was _them_ , it wasn't us. We'll send the boy back home, and then either we'll stay here, or we'll go back home. We'll fix us when the time is right."

If Alexander Thorn had his way, he'd have had the ground open up and swallow him whole. He had disparaged his father, blasphemed his God, but worst of all, and unforgivable in his eyes, he had hurt Delia. It had never sat well with him that she was supposed to be his protector. She could always defend herself, but he had always stepped in to help, even if had to be under the pretence of being her partner in crime, because that was the only way she'd accept his help. Then, they had become more than siblings, and each day that they had grown as lovers, as spouses, he hated the fact that she was born to give her life if the situation ever arose. He was the male and it was his job to protect her. But now...he had done worse than hurt her. He had put her in a situation that could have ended her life, had gotten her raped, had accused her of having sex with Damien, and had stoked Delia's worse fears that she was nothing, and meant only to die for him. If he had his way, he'd die right here and right now rather than face what he had done to her.

But, he could feel the love that she had for him. The love that they had shared since before they had words, and he sent his love to her, and he had never felt so much relief in his whole life than when she accepted that love, and it became a circuit, like it always was, love flowing between the pair of them like electricity...the power that kept the pair of them going. They would get through this, and then they would deal, like they always did. Alexander would stay if he had to, and yes, they would talk to Paul and he and Delia would live as husband and wife here, even if they had to kill Paul if he couldn't accept their relationship. But there would never be a day that was spent here that Alexander wouldn't wish that he could go home and be with his father, his sister, their dogs, and their home. He would pull himself together because he wouldn't leave his sister alone to help clean up the mess that the nazarene and the so-called god had created.

"We're Thorns, Alexander."

He pulled his head away and looked at her, and fell in love with her all over again. He didn't deserve her, and yet, she chose to be his everyday.

"We can do anything."

"Damn straight."

He leaned down and kissed her, wanting nothing more than to stay here inside their love, but they had other things that needed doing. She pulled away.

"We'll do it together, Xander. We'll both get him to the church. I don't want you in there on your own, and I just want to do it together."

"Okay." They turned their attention to the boy. "Paul must have taken care of Damien's remains, and the shock must have been too much for him." 

Delia shook her head. "Poor boy."

Alexander reached out for his sister's hand and took a deep breath. "Here goes everything."

And together, as gently as they could, they entered the boy's mind and told him to get up, and like a robot, the boy obeyed, got to his feet and stood there, as if he were waiting for instructions.

They walked the boy out of the kitchen and to the front door and out to the car. Alexander got into the back seat with the boy and Delia drove and all the while Alexander spoke to the boy telling him that everything was fine and soon it would be all over and he would be home.

It wasn't more than a five minute car ride to the church and once they were there, Alexander helped the boy out of the back seat and all three of them walked into the church.


	8. Home

**Chapter Eight—Home**

Paul and George had brought Damien into the church and laid him on the ground where the alter would have been. They were there for about ten minutes when the dog wandered in and trotted over to Damien, whined and lay down beside the remains.

Paul hadn't had much time to think about everything that was going on. He had had meetings to attend, including with the Ambassador, he had to maintain his clandestine relationship with Margaret, the Ambassador's wife and recent religious convert. He had been searching for the daggers and then worrying about getting Damien's body out of the house without getting caught, and the worrying wouldn't be over until Damien was properly disposed of.

He felt like an old fool for having blindly followed the boy, but he too had been duped by their god and the so-called second coming. Tricked into believing that the world was supposed to be ravaged by nuclear fall-out and that that could somehow be controlled. He also couldn't discount the fact that he was desperate to have Damien back and it had been easy to turn a blind eye to the boy and his insanity. Paul hoped that Alexander could stay, that would be the best of all possible solutions, but if not, Paul would carry on at Thorn until a successor could be appointed.

Paul looked over at the body. It would only be a matter of time until Damien would be laid to rest.

 **...666...**

Three hours later, Paul began to worry. He didn't want to risk either himself or George going back to the house to find out what was going on and he didn't want to leave Damien alone. Not only that, but the dog was acting strangely, pacing back and forth in the church, whining and growling, clearly unhappy with something and he was making Paul uneasy, and as time wore on, the dog was becoming less and less happy until he began growling and howling. The next thing Paul knew the dog charged at him, barking, then pawing at the daggers.

He and George had removed the sheet and Damien's remains were face down and Paul picked up one of the daggers and drove it through the middle of Damien's back and repeated the process six more times until all seven daggers were used and whatever supernatural force that had been holding Damien Thorn together no longer existed and his desiccated remains turned into bones and...Paul blinked several times...for a second, it had looked like the remains of a jackal, but Paul shook his head and whatever was left of Damien was distinctly human shaped.

Thirty minutes later, the dog let out a short bark and Paul looked up. Delia came through the door and held it open as Alexander had his right arm around the boy's waist and the boy had his left arm around Alexander's shoulder, and every step that the boy was taking caused him to have a pained expression; he had never learned, as Damien had, to tolerate being in one of their houses of worship. But the boy also looked as if he wasn't there, his eyes were vacant, and Paul wondered if it was Alexander's steam, and not his own, that was getting him to put foot in front of the other.

"So what happens now?" Paul looked from Delia to Alexander.

"We'd like some privacy, please. We'll let you know if we need anything."

"And when the times comes to..."

"I'll..."

But Delia turned to her brother. "You'll be doing no such thing. I don't understand everything that's going on. God sent us here? Okay, but this all may still have consequences and punishments and the Antichrist cannot be barred from the Kingdom of Heaven. I'd die for you, if I had to. Well, I'll take everlasting torment as well...to be separated from God and my father and brother for all eternity."

Paul shook his head. "Then I'll do it. George and I will give you privacy and when the time comes, you call me back and I'll care of what needs to be taken care of."

"Are you sure?"

Paul smiled her Delia. "It's not being altruistic, it's being pragmatic. I want you to stay, Alexander, and I need you at full strength, not worrying whether your soul, or you sister's soul is damned to an eternity with the nazarene; so I'll take one for the team, as it were."

"Thank-you."

"I'm not excluding you, Ms. Thorn, I want you both here, so George and I will step outside and you just let me know when." Paul turned to the boy. "Soon you'll be home and at peace. I'm glad I got to know you."

But the boy was unaware of what was going on and he just stood there as Paul took his leave.

Alexander tried to extricate himself from the boy's head, but he let out a wail and nearly collapsed, so he left himself there. No doubt, this was the first time in the boy's whole life that he had known peace and quiet inside his own mind. -

"How are you?" Alexander made sure his voice sounded calm and peaceful. No judgement or anger about what had happened.

"Tired."

The boy's voice sounded distant and far away, and he was nearly inarticulate. Alexander could feel his heart break for the boy and all that he had been through. "You'll be home soon. I want you to do something for me first."

"Okay."

"I want you to choose a name for yourself. You can't have Damien, though, there was already one of him."

"I like Alexander."

"There's already one of him, too. You must have learned some history. Wasn't there anyone from history that you liked?"

The boy was silent and at first the siblings thought that they had lost him, but he must have been thinking because he came back with an answer, "George taught me that there were two kings of England called James. I like James."

"Do you like James as a name?"

"Yes."

"Alright, James it is. Hello, James. I'm Alexander and this is Delia."

"I've failed here."

Tears were streaming down his cheeks. Alexander could feel the boy's sadness and grief and a good deal of fear. "James, you've not failed. Look at me."

And the boy turned to look at Alexander.

"He was never born. It was a trick to kill Damien. They were inside of his head, lying to him. Satan tried to reach Damien but couldn't and when he used Peter as a shield to protect himself, he left the dagger behind. Kate did what any parent would have done: she tried to kill the person who had murdered her son and she was successful. When he and Kate had sex, their god ensured that your conception would happen where and how it did, not the way Damien planned it, so then you were created where you were created, and that set into motion their possession of you. They set up shop in your head and there they stayed until they were sure that you unstable enough to ensure your destruction at some point, more likely than not, from Paul. There's not supposed to be any nuclear war, no destruction. That's a lot of stupid so-called satanism. They used you and for that, one day, we'll make them pay."

"Then I didn't fail, I was stupid."

Delia reached up and caressed his face. "You're not stupid; Damien wasn't stupid. They're evil and wicked and thought nothing of using a child to get what they wanted...that's worse than Damien killing those babies. But you're going home now. You're going back to God and your father and it'll all be over." She felt horrible for him again, she always had, but her anger had been _them_ , the leftover residue of their evil using her and Alexander.

"I'm sorry for..."

"You don't have anything to be sorry for, James. We may or may not forgive people, but we always forgive each other, so it's water under the bridge."

"And I can go home, now?"

"Yes, but you take as long as you need before you decide that you want to go."

And he was silent for a long time and both Delia and Alexander were curious as to what was going through his head. Would he miss anything about his life here? Maybe, but they doubted it. He looked forlorn and lonely, a little boy who never had the childhood he should have had. It would be a mercy to put him out of his misery and send him back home where he could be made whole again. Eventually, he took a deep breath and then turned to Alexander.

"I'm ready. I want to go home."

They lead the boy over to where Damien's remains were, they had been covered back up with the sheet, and Alexander and Delia got him to kneel and they each held one of this hands with another hand on his shoulder.

"Satan, receive Thy son back into Paradise to be at one with Thee."

"Satan, receive Thy son back into Paradise to be one with Thee. James, look at me."

The boy obeyed him and he and Delia began to fill the boy's head with the happiest things that they had happened to them as children...picnics, football games, birthday parties, trick-or-treating, horseback riding, BBQs, sledding, snowball fights, trips to the beach, sleepovers, pillow fights, walks in the rain, movies, sitting and talking with their father, and soon their happy memories became his. And they gave it all to him because neither he nor Delia wanted James' last moments on Earth to be filled with bitterness and sorrow, and it was working. He was so out of his mind with the overflow of joy at a life he had never lived, he was completely oblivious to the fact that the dog, who had left with Paul, had returned with him.

He and Delia grasped his hands tighter. They were crying, as was James, but they were tears of utter happiness and joy. They had had a great life with a father who loved them beyond words. A father who had always been there for them, who would always be there for them. They looked at each other and smiled through their tears. They wouldn't trade the life that they had had with Damien for anything, and if they had to stay here, they would have the best of memories to keep them happy until it was time for the pair of _them_ to go home. The only thing they both hoped was that if they had to stay, that Satan would get a message to Damien that his children were alive and well.

Paul waited, and then, Alexander gave him a nod. He shifted the dagger in his hand and taking all the strength that he could muster, he drove the dagger into James, and the sound of metal on bone was drowned out by the sound that came from him. If there had been windows in the church, they would have shattered at the sound that came from the dying boy. They lay James face down onto the ground, and Delia and Alexander shook their heads at Paul, and he understood: he wasn't to use the next dagger until the boy had died.

And he and Delia were inside his head, lessening the pain, taking his pain and making it their own, and it was only their connection with one another that prevented them from thinking they themselves were dying. His dark t-shirt grew darker where the blood drenched it, and it began to pool underneath him. He had gripped their hands so tightly when he had been stabbed, that the pair of them cried out, but they could feel his grip loosen, and then his hands slipped out of theirs as his whole body relaxed and then James Thorn returned to the Paradise from where he had come...back to the Whole...back to being one with Satan.

Paul then used the other six daggers properly, making sure the boy's soul was sent back, and it was with the insertion of the last dagger that Delia and Alexander staggered back. Paul made a move to go to Delia, to catch her in case she fell, but she recovered herself. -

"Alexander..."

"Delia...it's like I can breath for the first time since I've been here, but that isn't saying much considering this place is still making my skin fucking crawl."

"I feel it." Paul looked at the both of them. He was filled with relief. "Oh God, I feel it." Paul now could see, could understand what had gone wrong.

"Don't feel badly. It was _them_ and now that _they're_ done, for now, you should have an easier time diffusing this whole Middle East situation."

"Now that that's my actual goal, yes it will."

"Let's get the two of them out of here."

First, they put Damien's remains in the trunk of Paul's car, and the four of them laid James in the back seat, and they drove into the city and brought the remains to a crematorium, the owner of which was a disciple, and Damien and his son were cremated.

Paul, since he was no longer actively working to sabotage the peace process, was able to negotiate terms that allowed both sides to at least take away nuclear strikes as an option, and while a peace treaty was still a ways away, the threat of nuclear annihilation had been ended.

During that time, Delia and Alexander took the remains of Damien and James and disposed of their ashes on the grounds of Pereford, hoping that as a child, the boy had had some happy times there.

Once everything was taken care of in England, the three of them got on a private Thorn jet back to Chicago.

"This is more like it." Delia took a sip of her whiskey as she settled back into the leather seat.

Alexander said nothing, but smiled and settled back into his own set, enjoying, like his sister, the far less crowded environment in which they had come over.

Paul was working on his second scotch, and feeling more relaxed than he had since everything had happened. "I saw..." Paul stopped himself and then looked over at Alexander. As if needing more courage, he took another sip of his scotch. "When I used the daggers on Damien, I thought I saw..."

"What?"

"You can say anything Paul, neither of us is going to judge," Delia responded, but didn't open her eyes.

"After I used the daggers on Damien's body...the skull belonged to a jackal, but then it was human."

"That was them, Paul and their last ditch attempt to assert their power over the situation. You shouldn't have anymore dreams and that should be the end of it." Alexander opened his eyes and found Paul staring at him. It wasn't difficult to guess what he was thinking. He smiled. "Nice to know that I'm so wanted. We will go back to the industrial park where all this happened. If I leave, I leave, if I stay, then I stay, but only God knows right now which of those options it is."

The plane landed at the Thorn private airport, but before they would attempt to leave, Delia and Alexander spent nearly a week at Thorn to talk to some of their people in electronics and telecommunications to explain the technological advancements that existed where they were from. They also had computer engineers and programmers sit in on the meetings when the twins were trying to explain what the internet was and how it worked. If Delia and Alexander could successfully get them to understand, it would make Thorn the undisputed leader in computers and electronics, and once they felt that they had done what they could, Paul took them out to where it had all started. Milo had accompanied them. They had no idea whether the dog would make it back with them, but he had lived even though his master had died, and they had promised to take him with them.

"Yeah, this was abandoned years ago. If Satan wanted for you two to appear from out of nowhere and not be seen by anybody, He couldn't have picked a better spot." They stopped inside the door, at the lobby, and Paul got the feeling that he was _persona non grata_ past this point. "I don't know what to say."

Alexander looked at Paul. "I'm not sure I know what you mean."

"I don't want this to be good-bye. I like you and I need you to run Thorn."

He jerked his thumb Delia's direction. "Then that's who you want. I'm in no way, shape, or form equipped to run my father's company."

"That would be an issue. I think the highest woman we have working for us runs the steno pool."

"You might want to see to that."

"I think I'm going to have to. At any rate, I don't want you to go."

"Regardless of how this turns out, Paul, take a fucking vacation. For my whole life, I don't think I've ever seen you take a proper vacation. You'd come out to the summer house on a Friday and leave Sunday morning."

"The summer house?"

"The winter house...as you would have known it." Delia smiled at him.

"Hopefully, I'll be doing it while one of you is in charge."

"If I don't stay, I want you to keep something in mind. This may be over for you, but not for them, and not for Us. This is a long game and we aren't even close to the end. Don't give up on everything. Thorn will be around, even if it eventually has a different name. Keep the disciples, Paul, the smart ones because this will all come round again. _They_ won't stop trying; we won't either."

"You can count on it."

Alexander extended his hand. "Thank-you, for everything."

"You'll pardon me if I hope that this is a very awkward good-bye and that I will be seeing you both in a few moments. However, if not...I hope Damien is proud of you...of both of you." Paul finished shaking his hand.

"He is and he tells us all the time."

"Alexander, you are your father's son, but you're your own man, too. I'd like working for you."

"Coming for you, I take that as a great compliment."

Paul moved on to Delia. "You, my dear, must be the apple of your father's eye."

"That she is." But there was no rancour in the admission, only admiration for Delia's talents.

"Is it different for women where you come from?"

"Not much. When I take over the company, it will be an uphill battle, but people will just have to deal with it."

"It never ceased to surprise me when Damien, of all individuals, would be at the office until two in the morning. He worked harder than anybody when he could have done the least work and still got the same payoff. You strike me as the same way."

"That's pretty much Delia to a tee."

"Thank-you, Paul. You would have liked Anna; she's just like her uncle."

"I'll take your word for it." Paul shook Delia's hand.

"We might see you again very shortly."

"And I hope so. If not, I hope you get back safely and things go our way."

Each said their good-bye and Delia and Alexander made their way back downstairs to where they had appeared all those weeks ago, but this time, with a dog in tow. Before they entered the room, Alexander grabbed his sister's arm.

"Wait."

"What?"

"We don't know what's going to happen to us once we step in there."

"What's wrong?"

"Do we want to leave?"

"Xander, I don't think we have a choice in that."

"But what if we do? What if what we want determines whether we stay or go."

Delia smiled at him. "You're Antichrist if you stay. No waiting for Damien to pass. And yes, we'd live here as husband and wife." She came to him and he put his arms around her and held her against his chest. She could feel the pounding of his heart. "A great, big, public wedding with the pictures splashed across the front page and in the society column so everyone knew that I was your wife."

" _Tr_ _è_ _s_ , sexy, Delia." He kissed the top of her head.

"I find myself wanting a great, big wedding, Alexander Thorn...the dress, the flowers, the bridesmaids, the food, the honeymoon...all of it...while finding a way to not have it in one of their churches."

"So do I. And, nine months later, a lovely little daughter in your belly."

"I like that even more...being called mommy...raising our children together...being driven crazy by teenagers...being a grandmother..."

"But..."

She pulled away from him, her arms still wrapped around his waist. "We'd never see Damien again. What would happen? Would Satan tell him that we're okay? What if he's dead already? What if a hundred years have passed since we left?"

"I don't know. He could be a shadow of his former self, or have been a shadow of his former self...spending, or have spent, the rest of his days blaming himself for sending us to the plant instead of having gone alone."

"He'd hate himself forever, Xander."

He kissed her on the forehead, and then moved away from her, leaning against the wall, sliding down. Delia sat beside him and he took her hand. They sat in silence for sometime.

"I haven't gotten my period, Xander. I don't think I'm meant to have children."

"You don't..."

"But I do know. I know it in my heart, my body, and my soul. It's not my job to have babies. There's no guarantee that staying here would be any different."

"I'd knock up a disciple one way or another...kill her once she had our baby...you'd be out of the public eye for a bit...pregnancy troubles and all of that. No one would ever know that you weren't the one who had given birth to our daughter."

She smiled at him. "Glad to know that I'm not the only one who has given this some thought."

"You're never alone in _any_ of this, sugar cub." He kissed her hand. "If we stay, you'll never run Thorn."

Delia shook her head. "They are, like, two decades behind in what they think women should be doing. You'd have to be the public face of Thorn, I'd run it behind the scenes, or maybe once you "officially" became Antichrist, you'd know things, like Damien did. If I'm lucky, I'd get away with being in charge of one of the more useless departments in the company. If we stay, I'm going to have to kill a fuck ton of assholes who will keep trying to insist that I can't do the job because I have tits. I'll start running out of room to bury the bodies."

"Don't be ridiculous, Delia...we'd never run out of places to bury the bodies." Alexander put his head against the wall, stymied as to what he wanted to do, but, he sat up. "I don't have to think, I know. I want to go home, Deedle." He turned to her. "If we stay, I get one hundred percent of you...my wife and for all intents and purposes, the mother of my children...but that's it...I get zero percent of everything else, and I don't want to have my father spending the rest of his life wondering if he was responsible for losing his children. I want that life, Delia, the life we left behind. If we leave, I get ninety-nine percent of you, and one hundred percent of everything else. It'll be tough, being married to someone before I can, hopefully, murder her off, but it's how I get the most of everything that I want. However, if you want to stay, then we stay. If being a wife, and a mother means that much to you, then I happily, wholeheartedly, and totally accept without reservation your decision. Making you happy, Delia, is the only thing that matters to me. Nothing else."

And she could feel it, his love, his sincerity, his devotion and she sent it all right back to him. But she stood, held out her hand and he took it and she helped pull him up, and holding onto his hand, she lead him to the door.

"Are you sure?"

"We may end up staying, but, I want that life that we left behind, too. You think I want to give up graduating Harvard with the highest GPA that school has ever handed out? Right now, I'd kill for one of Cecile's double-decker cheddar, blue cheese, and bacon grilled cheese sandwiches, but most importantly, I don't want my father spending one more second, if he's still alive, blaming himself for what happened to us. If we leave, I get ninety-nine percent of you, and one hundred percent of everything else I want. We'll manage with you getting married, but that's not going to happen tomorrow. Until then, darling brother, we're just going to have to spend all of our spare time doing wicked and obscene things to one another."

Alexander closed his eyes. "Thank you, God, for my beautiful, perverted sister."

"And Amen to Satan for my gorgeous, and equally perverted brother. Are we ready to do this?"

"Darling, I was born ready."

"Uh-huh. Ready Milo?"

He barked and wagged his tail.

They gripped each other's hand tighter, and bracing themselves, the trio stepped through the doorway...


	9. While You Were Out

**Chapter Nine—While you were out**

Elias Michaels went to the cafeteria to get himself breakfast, and sat there eating his bacon and eggs as he read the notes on the clipboard. He had a pretty good idea of the questions that the Thorns would be asking him when they were done the tour.

When Delia and Alexander had first started coming to visit the facility, Michaels thought that they would be typical rich kids...rude, stupid and content to remain so; instead, they were genuinely interested in what was going on, especially Delia who, like her father, had a mind for science. Michaels knew that he would be able to trust whatever it was that they would tell him.

It was ten-thirty, he was done breakfast and was paying for another coffee to take with him when the klaxon started blaring. Moments later, a man in a white lab coat made his way into the seating area and locked eyes with Michaels.

"Oh, fuck." Elias dropped the coffee and took off running after the man who had himself run back.

There was barely controlled chaos as the building was being evacuated. When the men in the control room saw Michaels coming, they cleared out of there.

"What happened!?"

"No clue. Everything was fine and then there was a leak. There's chlorine dioxide gas getting into that room and we can't shut it off."

All the time the man was talking, Michaels was flipping switches and turning knobs and dials. He sat at the computer, trying to shut of everything from there, but to no avail. He picked up the phone and before anyone else on the other end could say anything he spoke, "I can't get any of the safety valves to shut off...what the fuck is happening down there?!" He listened to what the man on the other end of the phone was saying, and it was making him unhappier by the second. "What do you mean won't shut off?" Through the glass, Michaels saw a man running back this way and he turned his attention back to the man on the other end of the phone. "You get it shut off...now!" He hung up. The man whom he had followed from the cafeteria stood beside him, pale, and getting paler by the second.

"Four people were trapped in that room."

The silence was staggering...there was no need to say aloud who two of those people were.

Elias knew the part of the plant that they had toured, and knew exactly where they had gotten caught because they had passed security checkpoints at each section the four of them had gone through. He went first to the door that Delia and Alexander had entered, where the tour would have started. With a deep breath, Elias began punching in the code to open the door. If it worked, he and the three others with him were dead. Of course, given the fact that it was Damien Thorn's children who were in there, he quite possibly could be a walking dead man anyway. But it didn't work. He took the long way around to get to the last section where Delia, Alexander, and the two others were trapped. Again, he punched in the code, but nothing. _One more door and they would have been fine_.

When he had started working at Thorn, he had had no clue who Damien Thorn really was, but he did now and turning a blind eye to other "accidents" had gotten where he was today—head manager of all of Thorn's industrial plants. His position came with perks and responsibilities, and now one of his responsibilities included picking up the phone and informing someone whom Elias knew could kill him without leaving the chair that he was sitting in, that his children were probably dead.

 **...666...**

Thomas knocked on the door.

"Come."

He poked his head in and locked eyes with Damien.

"Excuse me." Damien got up and went out into the hall where Thomas had his keys in hand. "What is it?"

"There's been an accident at the plant involving Delia and Alexander."

Both he and Damien had briskly walked to the elevator, where Thomas pushed the button to call the car.

"What happened?"

They were inside as the elevator made its descent to the executive parking garage. "It's a chlorine dioxide leak. The tour was almost done when it happened. They managed to get everyone out except for four people, including Delia and Alexander."

At the car, Thomas got behind the wheel and drove him and Damien out to find out what had gone wrong.

 **...666...**

Elias was waiting at the front door when he saw the car pull up...with Damien Thorn inside. He choked down the heart sized lump in his throat and watched as he ran to the building. There would be no talking, no asking questions as Damien, who knew the building like the back of his hand, threw open the door and running, made his way to the control room and began the process of button pressing and switch flipping that Michaels had tried. When that didn't work, Damien sat behind the computer and began punching in codes, but nothing. Elias followed Damien downstairs as he went to the door where Damien's children would have begun the tour and pushed in codes, but it no more worked for Damien than it had or him. At a sprint, Damien took the only other way around to the door that would have lead to the way out, and again, pushed in the code to open the door. Nothing.

Now Elias was truly scared, for if Damien Thorn, Antichrist, son of the Devil could do nothing, then what hope did the rest of them have of getting out of this alive?

 **...666...**

From the second that Thomas had stuck his head inside the meeting room door, Damien knew something very wrong was going on. As he had got up, and had followed Thomas down the hall and the words 'accident at the plant' had left Thomas' mouth, Damien had reached out to his children...only to find a gaping hole that filled him with a dread that he hadn't known in his whole life. This wasn't like when Alexander had been taken. Then, his son had been fuzzy. There, but Damien had not been able to connect with him. Now, it was like neither one of his children existed.

In the car on the way to the plant; as his fingers had flown across the keyboard of the computer meant to prevent an accident just like this from happening; standing taping out the override code of the door that his children would have entered to begin the tour, Damien had had to reach deep down inside to find a calm that he had never needed to seek out. He fought the temptation to kill every person who had been in the building who should have been more careful and had made sure that something like this never happened while his children were here. He was running to the other door, the one where Delia and Alexander should have exited from, aware that Elias and Thomas were chasing after him. He didn't care that both men were putting their lives in danger, for once Damien reached the other door, his fingers punched in the code that should have opened the door. Had it worked, Elias and Thomas would have been killed, but the door remained locked.

For one of the first times in his life since he had found out who he really was, Damien Thorn had no fucking clue what was going on. He caused things like this to happen. He was the puppet master, never the puppet. He watched others flounder and struggle. He watched others be helpless, but now it was he who was helpless, unable to get to his children; it was a position not only unknown to him, but one that he sincerely didn't like.

Then, Damien backed up and regarded the door as if it was an object he was seeing for the first time.

Thomas turned to Elias, who got the message and turned on his heels and left.

"What is it?"

Damien shook his head. "I'm not doing this...I'd never...it's my Father...Satan is doing this." Then, something else occurred to Damien, and he turned to Thomas. "The computer systems failure at Thorn? When does that happen? When does the entire fucking computer system fail at _my_ company, only to be fixed half an hour after I walk through the door?"

"It was a diversion. A way to make sure that you'd be there instead of here." Thomas didn't bother asking why. "What are you supposed to do?"

"I don't know. If this is happening and my Father isn't telling me, then I have to have faith and let all of this play out."

The door Delia and Alexander were supposed to have exited out of opened out into a hallway, and Damien slid down the wall opposite of the door. He would sit here and wait until his Father's plan was revealed and in his heart, body, soul, and mind, Damien hoped and prayed that that didn't include the death of his children.

 **...666...**

For the next thirteen hours, crews moved to try to vent the gas, but were unsuccessful. They had turned the gas off at its source, but it remained in the room.

Thomas watched Damien, who had not moved, ate, or did much of anything else in those thirteen hours. He could have left to go home, but this is where Damien was, so, this was where Thomas would stay...

Thomas had wasted away at a fairly prestigious company who had wanted him more for the colour of his skin than his talent...until he had been, out of necessity because there had been no one else, put in charge of a mergers and acquisitions team who had managed a takeover that the _H_ _arvard Business Review_ had called the takeover of the decade. Paul Buher had called him on the phone. But Thomas was no neophyte, ready to rollover just because Thorncame calling, so he had politely turned down the second most important individual at the largest company on the face of the Earth. He had hoped for a comeback, but had not expected the one he got.

He had been away on a business trip when a knock on the hotel room door sent him to answer it. Standing there was the single most gorgeous woman Thomas Chambers had ever seen. He was married, but she did things to him that night that could still make his eyes roll back in his head just by thinking about it. There had been drugs, and it had been under the influence of some powerful medication that she had told him some pretty interesting things about Damien Thorn and in the morning, Thomas thanked her for a wonderful evening, but if Paul Buher wanted something from him, then he would speak to Paul himself...and later that day, with the private helicopter landing on the roof of the building, Paul had done just that.

Yes, everything she had told him about Damien was true, but now Thomas upped the stakes by telling Paul that if he was wanted so badly, it would be by personal invitation of Damien Thorn himself; that came the next week once he had returned home from his trip, and Thomas was on one of Thorn's private planes on his way to Chicago. Once in the office of the most powerful man on Earth, Thomas told Paul Buher, no slouch himself, to fuck off and he had asked Damien Thorn only one question: what could his god do for him that theirs couldn't.

And Damien had answered the question...no frills, no girls, no drugs, and forty-five minutes later, when Paul Buher knocked on the door, it was as if Thomas and Damien had known each other for years...

That was twenty years ago, and as Thomas looked down the hall at his boss, his God incarnate, he reaffirmed what he had long ago accepted: that he would die for Damien if the situation demanded it. And if things didn't go well here tonight, that situation might very well be the shit show they were in right now.

 **...666...**

Damien knew exactly how long he had been sitting there, but he didn't care. He knew that people were running around, still trying to do their jobs, and Damien let them do it, to ask them to stop would have been suspicious. Nobody spoke to him, even Thomas backed off, which was fine with him. Damien wasn't in the mood to talk to anybody. He just wanted all of this to be over, but he didn't question any of it, not even in the silence of his own mind and soul, he simply let it happen. He sat on floor and kept a vigil over his children.

There had never been any doubt that Damien had loved Delia and Alexander. From the first moment he had felt his children inside of Kate, he had loved them, but what had surprised him was the depth of that love. He didn't know that it was possible to love something as much as he loved his children. Nothing made him happier than when he would come home from work and there they were, sitting on the foyer steps waiting for him. He missed them while they were at school, missed them more than he let on, and because he knew that it would make them unhappy to know that their father was missing them, he pretended that he was fine while they were gone.

He liked being the Antichrist, he liked being CEO and President of the biggest company on the face of the Earth, for more reasons than Damien could count. Not that he didn't feel the pull of home, and he had felt it in its most heightened form when the nazarene and the so-called god had manipulated him into thinking that the second coming had indeed occurred. The older he got, the more insistent that pull became, but being a father had, over the years, made the call home a distant thought. He enjoyed all the things that all of his positions got him, but as he watched his children grow, he realized that he loved being a father more than anything else and right now, he was a father who couldn't get to his children and again. Again, for one of the few times in his life, he felt the urge to connect with his primitive nature and let out the howl of an animal whose children are in distress and can't be reached. Instead, Damien sat in silence, trying to keep at bay the one thing that insistently kept coming back, demanding to be thought.

 **...666...**

Thomas looked at his watch; it was nearly two in the morning. There was still an effort underway to get into the room. Elias hadn't gone home either and while he ran around doing what he could do to fix the problem, Thomas kept an eye on Damien...if anything were to change, it would be evident in Damien before any thing else. Thomas began to wonder if they would be here until dawn when Damien's head suddenly jerked to the left and he sprung up and headed for the door. Thomas took off down the hall and was soon at Damien's side and in the mean time the sound of the huge vents kicking on filled the room, but the locks on the door wouldn't unlock...not enough of the gas had been cleared.

Thomas looked up at Damien, whose hand was on the door knob, steady as a rock, and Thomas knew that it was by sheer force of will that was preventing Damien's fear about what was behind that door from spilling out. Thomas also knew that if Delia and Alexander were dead, then so was everyone else in the building, there would be no stopping Damien's grief and there wouldn't be anyone who was spared.

Finally the sound of a click...the computer released the locks and the door could now be open. Damien threw open the door and ran inside...


	10. There's No Place Like Home

**Chapter Ten—There's no Place like Home**

Delia heard someone calling her name and when she opened her eyes, she found herself staring into the face of her father. She thought she was hallucinating until she felt him give her hand a squeeze.

Damien felt her panic. "I'm here and I'm not going anywhere."

She sat up and realized that she was on a stretcher. "Alexander!?"

"Present and accounted for."

Like her, he was being loaded onto a stretcher...apparently there was a trip to the hospital in their immediate futures. "Daddy...Milo?"

"What?" Damien was unsure as to why her dog would be here.

"Where's Milo?" Delia kept looking around, but eventually gave up and flopped back down onto the stretcher.

When the Thorns got outside, there were two ambulances waiting to take them to the hospital, but Alexander was having none of it. "Stop." However, the paramedics were intent on putting him into his own ambulance. "I said stop." Alexander focused on the attendant in front of him, who came to an immediate halt; the other man had no choice but to follow. "If you wouldn't mind, Mr. Thorn." Alexander held out his hand to his father.

Damien helped his son off the stretcher and he walked to the ambulance, got in and sat on the bench.

"If Alexander is sitting, then I want to sit, too." Delia started to get up.

"You'll stay right where you are. One obstinate teenager is enough for right now." Damien watched as her stretcher was wheeled inside the ambulance and he climbed in, sat beside his son and they made their way to the hospital.

"How are you?" Damien took Delia's hand, kissed it and held it.

"Okay."

But she sounded far from okay. Her voice was flat, and he could tell that she was expending a great deal of energy to keep herself in check. He reached out to her with his mind, but she pushed him away.

"Deedle, whatever it is, you can tell me."

"Not here, daddy, please." She pulled her hand away from his.

"Ah, Delia, I just had a thought."

"What?" She looked over at her brother.

"What if we're not home?"

She was suddenly filled with a nauseating panic. "Do you think so? We could be somewhere else?"

"I don't know...I feel like it's home...like I belong. Satan wouldn't send us somewhere else, would He?"

"I can't think right now, Xander. I just want..." but she stopped herself and reigned in her emotions in order to prevent herself from breaking down on the spot.

Damien looked at his son, but he was staring at the floor of the ambulance and like his sister, had shut himself off from his father. He was now certain that something more had happened than the two of them simply being locked in that room.

Once at the hospital, a battery of tests were run on Delia and Alexander and everything not only came back negative from any effects from the gas leak, they were the epitome of perfect health.

Thomas arrived at the hospital and found Damien waiting for his children. "So? What's going on?"

"Physically, they're fine...more than fine. In every other way, however..."

"What happened in there?"

"I don't know. They're not talking and I don't think that conversation is going to happen for awhile."

"I'll drive you home."

It was four-thirty in the morning when they were discharged from the hospital. In the car, Damien sat in the front and Delia and Alexander sat in the back. It was unnerving for Thomas to be in the car with the Thorns when it was this uncomfortably silent, especially Alexander, who could usually be counted on to provide the levity for times like these.

"How ya doing, Xandman?"

Alexander sat, unmoving, looking out the window, but not really seeing anything. He was using everything in him to remain awake, and to keep the tidal wave of grief, anger, love, hate, relief and about a dozen other emotions in check. Without turning from the window, he addressed Thomas.

"I've been better."

They pulled into the long driveway leading up to the house and in the quiet of the night, they could hear the dogs barking from inside.

"Paul and I will be by later."

Thomas didn't say anything to Delia and Alexander, both of whom were opening their doors and had jumped out of the car before it had come to a stop. He didn't have to be physic, or empathic to know that they were waiting until they got home to let go of whatever had happened to them. The twins were up the stairs and at the door. Thomas had never seen them like this and as a father himself, he had a slight idea of what Damien must have been going through.

"Take care of them."

"I will."

Damien joined his children at the top of the stairs and discovered that the door was unlocked. He opened the door and the dogs, who usually waited until being given permission to jump on anyone, were all over Delia and Alexander.

But the Thorn children had only one destination in mind and as they took off up the stairs, Damien could feel them begin to unravel and he ran after them, afraid to leave them alone for even a few moments. At the chapel, as was the case downstairs, the door was unlocked; but the chapel door was also open.

His children stepped inside the room and the pair of them feel to their knees as if strings had been cut and then...it came...weeping and wailing the likes of which Damien had never before heard. He went to them and they grabbed him and he had no choice but to join them on the floor. They held onto to him so tightly, at times he could hardly breath and he could feel finger nails digging into his flesh.

The dogs, knowing that something was wrong, followed everyone into the chapel and tried, as best they could, to get to their respective masters, but for Delia and Alexander, there was only Damien.

They cried and sobbed and Damien had no idea where all this was coming from. He couldn't distinguish one feeling from another, or whose emotions were whose. He was beginning to worry about them, that perhaps they would be sick, but their constant flow of tears seemed to be coming to an end and eventually, with hiccups and gasps of breath, heavy heads slumped against Damien's chest as exhaustion over took them. They needed to be up here as part of their healing process, but he would make it as comfortable as possible for them.

"Hang on." He got up and held his hand out to each of them. "Delia, you stay here and get undressed; Xander, out in the hall."

Alexander followed his father, fell against the wall and began removing his clothes.

"Keep her awake until I come back."

Damien took off to his room for one simple reason: it had been a few years since he had been in either of their rooms, Delia's in particular, since he had always afforded her the most privacy. Then, when they had told him of their involvement with one another, he had decided it was best to avoid that whole floor. So, his room was the best bet to find what he wanted as quickly as possible.

Once there, he grabbed two white t-shirts and two pairs of clean grey fleece gym shorts. They'd fit Alexander fine, but at least they had a draw string so they wouldn't fall off Delia. Next, he stopped at the linen closet and grabbed two pillows and two blankets and as he made his way back to them, he heard them both conjugating the verb to eat in Latin. It had been the very first verb he had taught them to conjugate, and he had done so at the dinner table. Things had gotten very silly, particularly from Alexander's end; but in the morning, between the two of them, they had remembered how to conjugate the verb in the present, active voice.

"Delia, take these and get dressed." He stuck his arm in the room and handed her the clothing. Alexander still had on his briefs, so Damien turned around to give his son privacy.

"Okay."

When Damien turned around, Alexander was pulling the t-shirt over his head.

"Delia, are you dressed?"

"Yes."

Damien brought the blankets and pillows inside, dropping everything except one of the blankets, which he spread on the floor. Delia and Alexander lay down, and Damien handed them each a pillow. He then covered them with the other blanket.

"You're not leaving, are you daddy?"

"You want me to stay in here?"

"Till we fall asleep, D-man."

Damien sat, his back against the wall that was closest to their heads. They lay on their sides, and for a moment or two, they simply stared at each other. Then, they put the palms of their right hands together, steepling their fingers against the other's. They touched the other's face, tracing over the same body parts...forehead, eyebrows, eyes, nose, mouth. He could hear them whispering and watched as one and then the other would nod their head in response. Eventually, there was silence, but he knew that they were still communicating. This had been part of their bedtime ritual when they were very young, or when one needed to calm the other. Their hands continued their roaming, exploring the other's face, revelling in both in their likes and differences.

He could feel their tiredness, it was added to his own, but he wouldn't leave until he knew that his children were asleep. Eventually, he heard what he had heard countless times before his children nodded off...

"I love you, Nander, always and forever."

"I love you, Deedle, forever and always."

They put their foreheads together and held each other's hands. Delia closed her eyes and in moments was out like the proverbial light. Alexander kissed his sister's forehead, closed his own eyes and joined his twin in slumber.

The dogs sniffed them, licking their faces and Damien was certain that they would make themselves comfortable beside their respective masters and nod off as well. However, all three dogs took off out of the door and down the stairs.

After a time, Damien stood; he would go downstairs, there was nothing more he could do up here, but he looked down at his children, both of whom were sound asleep. All that mattered for right now was that his children were safe at home. They would, as a family, deal with whatever had happened to them. He sent his love to both of them and left the chapel.

As he made his way downstairs, Damien could tell there was something wrong with the dogs. Without seeing them, he knew their hackles were up and suddenly there was frantic barking, but it was coming from outside. Damien made his way to the kitchen. It was light outside, and out of the window, he could see a large Rottweiler running towards the backdoor. While the dog couldn't see Damien, it must have sensed that he was near because the barking increased and he launched himself at the kitchen door trying to get to his new master.

The three dogs were growling, but had not advanced past the island in the kitchen; then Damien looked down and realized that he hadn't either. He couldn't understand what he was feeling, but he braced himself and moved forward with all the other dogs giving him warning barks and sympathetic whines.

When Damien opened the door, the dog charged at him and he had to slam the door in the animal's face. Something was not quite right about the him, but what that something was, Damien was at a loss to explain, though whatever it was, it was making him nauseated, and that wasn't including the stench that was coming off the dog. His fear and panic was coming at Damien until he couldn't take it anymore, and he reached out to the animal to calm him down, and when he once again opened the door, he found the dog laying on his belly, shaking. When Damien denied him entrance into the house for a second time, the began howling, shortly joined by the other dogs.

"That's enough out of you three. Milo look at me."And the new dog did as he was told. "I want you, I'm not telling you that I'm not having you, but you cannot come into this house like this." Damien looked at his watch; it was six-thirty. He'd call the vet at eight, but the animal needed some kind of...balancing before Damien would allow anyone to take him. "You need some company, so the three of you, get out of there."

The dogs seemed to pretend as if they hadn't heard him. Damien's dog began sniffing around his food bowl, and the other two simply turned their backs to Damien. Under different circumstances, it would have been funny, but Damien was in no mood for frivolity right now.

"You will all go outside and do something with him, fix him make him understand that he's welcome here, but not like this." He turned to the new dog. "And the vet will pick you up and take care of you and you will go with him without one sound of complaint. Do I make myself clear?"

The dog let out a mournful sigh and the others walked past Damien, his own dog giving him a pleading look, but Damien jutted his chin towards the door and soon, all four dogs were outside.

 **...666...**

It was noon when Paul and Thomas came by to find out what was going on. They sat in Damien's study.

"So, what happened?" Paul added more sugar to his coffee, otherwise, he took it black.

"I don't know. They came home and went to sleep."

"But they were in that room and they didn't die." Thomas looked at Damien, who was staring out of the window.

"Yes, but given the situation, I'm not sure if they were kept alive because Satan was protecting them or if like me, only the knives can kill them."

"We also need to start dealing with how Delia and Alexander were able to survive being in that room for as long as they did." Paul leaned forward in his seat.

"That'll be sorted out in due time. My main concern right now is what happened to them because it's a hell of a lot more than them being in that room."

After lunch, Paul and Thomas offered to stay, but Damien refused, so the men left him. It was three when the vet returned with the dog, who smelled better than he did when he had first appeared at the house. Apparently his time with the other dogs had helped and while excited to see Damien, he was not as frantic or anxious as he had first been.

Besides Paul and Thomas coming over, not much else went on. He had called Cecile in time and told her not to come and he kept checking in on his children, who peacefully slept away in the chapel, something that hadn't done since they were babies.

It was after six in the evening when Alexander appeared in the study.

"What time is it?"

Damien got up and went over to him. His son looked like death not so warmed over. "Six. I was thinking of ordering some food and having it delivered."

"I'm not eating anything until she comes down." Alexander looked back out at the stairs. He then looked at his father, but turned away. He may have fixed things with Delia, but he still felt horrible for the things he had thought and said about his father.

"Whatever it is, you can tell me. You know that."

"I'm sorry," his voice shook.

"Xander, you have nothing to be sorry for."

"Yes. Yes, I do. I thought and said the most horrible things about Delia...and about you."

He put his arms around his son, who began crying. It was always awkward when Xander was this upset. It was simply easier to comfort Delia, not to mention that his son hardly ever got upset over anything. Whatever had happened to them had been very bad.

Eventually, Xander pulled away. "I'm sorry." He went to the desk and pulled some tissue out of the box and blew his nose.

"Don't be sorry. I'm just glad whatever happened is over and that you're both home and now we deal with it...later. I don't either you or your sister are in a state right now to handle anything more complicated than deciding what to eat. Speaking of which, I will call for food now. However, I think the first order of business might be to explain him." Damien went to the desk to use the phone to call Chan's as he pointed to the study door.

Sensing his master was awake, Alexander's dog had come to find him, but he was with another dog, who barked excitedly and came gamboling over to Alexander.

"Milo!" Alexander sat on the floor as the dog came over to him and sat in his lap, licking his face. "I thought I'd never see you again!"

The dog sat up straight as if to show him that that had been crazy talk, but the dog nuzzled Alexander under his chin.

"You look and smell a crap ton better." Alexander reached for his dog and waited until his father got off the phone. "Did he look like this when he got here?"

"Hardly. He stank like he hadn't seen a bath for his whole life."

"That's probably because he hadn't. I hope that you have no illusions about your masculinity, Milo, because the second she comes down here, it's going to be all baby talk and telling you what a pretty boy you are...but you'll take and you'll like it, just like we all do."

The dog let out a bark as if to agree to what Alexander had said.

"Satan let him come here, D-man. He's been through a lot, haven't you, boy?" Milo licked his face. "Though any more explanation than that..."

"It's okay, I can wait."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Xander, we don't have to do this now."

"Yes, we do. I need to know."

"Let's go to the kitchen."

The pair of them, followed by the dogs, went to the kitchen. Damien went to the fridge and got his son a bottle of mineral water.

Alexander took a swig, nearly draining the bottle in one go. He screwed the lid back on and turned to his father. "Has being a dad made you weak?"

"I don't understand."

"Has being a father interfered with your ability to do your job as the Antichrist?"

Damien sat at the island. "Okay...where's this coming from?"

"Has it?"

"So far, it hasn't come up."

"What would you do if it did? What would you do if you had to make a choice between letting one of us die in order to advance you goal as Antichrist? What if when I was kidnapped, it was your job to let me die?"

"But it didn't."

"But what if it had? What if you had had to make that choice?"

"I realized when you were taken, and I could barely feel you that the most important thing to me in _this_ world were my children."

"So it has made you weak. We're a liability to you." -

"You and your sister are _no_ _t_ liabilities to me."

"I need to know. I need to know because...because I'm going to be a dad one day and the thought that I'd ever had to choose between being the Antichrist and my son's life..."

"Alexander, that's not going to happen. I expect you to be a good father. I've tried to set a good example..."

"You've not tried, you've succeeded."

"Okay, then I expect you to be, at the very least, as good a father as I've been."

"But..."

"Is the world coming to an end right now?"

"No."

Damien smiled. "Then it can wait."

The doorbell rang at seven-thirty, and Damien gave his wallet to Alexander to pay for the food, while he went up to the chapel to get his daughter. Inside, he found her leaning against the wall, her knees drawn up to her chest. Her dog's head was on her feet and she was stroking his head.

"Delia?" Damien sat beside her. She was crying. "Deedle, I don't understand what you're doing right now, but don't shut me out."

She turned to him. She was trembling now and her tears flowed hot and fiercely down her cheeks. Like Alexander, she was pale and even though she had spent the last twelve hour sleeping, she did not look well rested.

"Daddy?" Her voice was shaky. Damien pulled his daughter to him, but she resisted sinking into the arms of her father. "Am...am...I a mistake?"

The words were barely intelligible. "Delia, we are not doing this here, but the very short answer is no, you are not a mistake. You need a break from in here, both of you, this room is not what you need right now so you are going to come downstairs and eat and be with you me and your brother." Damien stood and held out his hand and he helped Delia get up and the two of them headed downstairs.

She smelled the food from Chan's before she saw it, and despite her tiredness, her stomach rumbled. In the kitchen, her brother was opening up the food containers. He came to her and they put their arms around each other.

"We're home, Xander. We don't have to worry about that."

"I know. I can feel it."

They would make love later at some point, but she smiled at him and then noticed three dogs sitting around the island, hoping, no doubt, that some stray food should find its way in their direction. Delia shook her head and looked down; her dog was by her side and suddenly she gasped with realization.

Milo gave a happy bark and came over to her, excited to see his young mistress, but he took notice of Damien and he approached Delia more cautiously.

"It's okay to be happy, Milo."

And with that permission, he wagged his tale, and plopped down as Delia sat on the floor.

"I thought we'd lost you and look at you." She kissed him between the eyes. "You're all nice and clean." Delia began to scratch him behind his ears and over onto his back he went. She looked at her father. "You have to give him a belly scratch."

Damien reached down and gave Milo's belly a vigorous scratching and then gave him a gentle thump and then began dishing out food for everyone.

"Who's a handsome boy? Who's a pretty boy?" Milo thumped his tail on the tile. Delia's dog had come over and not wanting to be left out, nudged her. "Yes, you're a handsome boy, too." She gave her dog a kiss on his head. "See? We're all friends here and you don't have to stink like an abattoir to guard the Antichrist. But I need to see that you can be fierce. Can you show Deedle how you can be fierce?"

The dog began snarling, his jowls pulled back and his teeth bared. Saliva flew from his mouth, his fur was standing on end and his face was contorted into a mask of hate. If there had been anyone there intent on harming Delia, Alexander and most importantly Damien, the dog would have ripped that person to shreds.

Delia laughed and clapped her hands as she had done when she was little and she hugged the dog and kissed him again, yes. "Such a pretty boy, yes you are." The dog made his way back to Damien and sat beside his master.

"What did I tell you about her?" Alexander looked down at Milo.

Delia went to the island where Damien was putting food on plates. "What are you telling the dog about me?" She reached over into the container, removed a chicken ball and took a bite.

"That he needs to kiss any shred of his masculinity good-bye. He's lucky you're not four anymore and therefore won't have to endure the humiliation of having little bows on his head." He jerked his thumb in the direction of the other dogs.

Delia stuck her tongue out at him and took the full plate that her father handed her, and once all the Thorns had food, they headed to the kitchen table.

"I already told your brother that since the world as we know it isn't coming to and end, the discussion of exactly went on will wait until the two of you don't look and feel like you've been hit by a train. I don't care if it takes you a month to recover from whatever this was, it will wait until _I_ decide that you are well enough to handle telling me about whatever happened." -

Delia was sitting to her father's right and this time, when Damien put his arm around her, she accepted her father's attention and leaned against him. Every once in a while, her hand disappeared under the table as she gave food to her dog. Milo was licking Delia's hand, when Alexander looked at her.

"You know, naming all the dogs Milo is kind of counter-productive to giving them their individuality."

"Good point." Delia looked down under the table. "New Milo can be Milo, though I'm sure he knows that most times, father won't be using his name. You are keeping him, aren't you?

"Until I hear differently, he stays."

Delia went back to eating, and Alexander looked down at his dog. "Hugo." The dog looked up at him. "I hereby dub thee, Hugo. Congrats." He he threw a chunk of chicken to his newly named dog.

Delia frowned and kept eating, but after looking at Damien she smirked and looked down at her dog again. "Hey, Gojira, want this?" She put her hand under the table and the dog snatched what was left of Delia's egg roll.

"Father, make her change names right now."

Damien laughed. "I don't think so. Maybe next time you'll think before you speak."

"Sucker. Hey, Gojira, that's you. Now, everybody has a name...except for Damien's dog, but that's father's prerogative."

They finished eating, cleaned up and Damien went to do some work so that they could watch a movie together later, so Delia and Alexander slipped away upstairs. They used Alexander's room as their shared bedroom so that if Delia wanted space or privacy, she could retreat to the comfort of her own quarters.

"I slept for twelve hours, and I could sleep for another twelve. It's only knowing that I'm spending time with father that's preventing me from falling asleep right now."

Alexander nodded. "I'm beginning to think that I'm never going to feel well-rested ever again." He sat on the bed, and she sat beside him. "Are you sure we're okay, Deedle?"

"More than okay." She leaned on him and he held her.

"I have no words for what I feel for you. You're my life, Delia. I'd choose death if I couldn't have you."

They reached out to each other and they could feel a love that neither could feel while they had been there. It was pure and bright and clean, like being in the chapel.

"Are you too tired for sex?"

"Mm, never." Alexander got up, held out his hand and pulled her up. "How do you feel about honing our shower love making skills?"

"Yes, please." She pulled him towards his bathroom.

At the door, Alexander paused.

Delia pouted. "You haven't changed your mind have you? I'd hate to have to take care of things on my own."

"Perish the thought, _m_ _a_ _soeur_. No, I've just come up with something, though what that something is, you're going to have to wait a few days to find out." He ran his thumb along her bottom lip, and then bent to kiss her; she moaned into his mouth. Alexander pulled his mouth away from hers, and kissed her on the nose. "I like that sound Deedle," he murmured. "I love you, _Madame_ , always and forever."

"Forever and always, _Chevalier._ "

Delia reached behind her, turned the door knob, and pushed open the door. With a wicked grin, she pulled her brother into the bathroom, closing the door behind them.

 **...666...**

It was only under the threat of falling asleep in the hot shower that made them decide that they had had enough. Once in the bedroom, proper, they dried each other off and they were putting on clean pyjamas when there was scratching sound at the door. Alexander quickly pulled on his bottoms and put on his top and opened the door. There was Milo looking up at him.

"We have a visitor."

"Come in," Delia sat and Milo came, sniffing his way into the room. He made his way to her, and plopped himself in her lap. Alexander joined them on the floor.

"It's like he's a different dog."

"A better and less smellier dog." Delia began scratching him behind the ears, and Milo melted like eighty pounds of hot butter. "But what kind of hosts are we? We haven't shown you our rooms, not to mention giving him a tour of the chapel upstairs. This is Alexander's room, Milo." Delia pushed Milo off of herself and got up.

"And this is my bed." Alexander sat and patted beside him and Milo hopped up as if he'd always been there. "Well, mine while I'm here. Delia and I will be going back to school soon. You'll have Damien all to yourself."

"Come on."

Milo followed Delia over to her room and he sniffed around and joined her at her desk.

"And this is where I do my work that Damien gives me and where I was bitching about the Greek that he had me translating but after what we've been through...I'll be more than happy to get it done."

"Delia, we should make a list of all the stuff we want to do while we're here so we don't waste anymore of our vacation time."

"I like it that idea. I don't want to go away anywhere special, I just want to spend time with you and Damien...the summer house is pretty much as far as I want to get."

Alexander smiled. "We can go up by ourselves at one point, or stay on if we all three of us go. We haven't been up there since we started having sex. You...me...naked on the verandah...having at each other until they hear us back in the fine state of Illinois." He reached over and kissed her.

"If it was anything like what we just did in the shower, I'm looking forward to it already." Delia moved to her dresser, taking the key that was in the crystal dish and the trio went back downstairs and to the stairs leading up to the chapel. Inside the room, they were enveloped by that same presence that had greeted them up here years ago. Now it was Alexander and Delia's turn to melt like butter and it was taking all of their self control not to curl up on the floor and fall asleep again.

The dog cautiously followed them into the room and made his way over to the siblings. He lay his massive head on Alexander's feet and sighed.

"I hear you, buddy. This is home Delia...back with Satan...back with God...I could just curl up here and sleep for a year."

"We'll pick another night and stay up here again, but for right now, I want Damien." Delia closed her eyes and the two of them stood there, enjoying being one with God and then, eventually, they grabbed their pillows and blankets and left and Alexander locked the door behind them.

Delia and Alexander grabbed sleeping bags and made their way to Damien's bedroom, where the door was open.

"Knock, knock." Delia hugged their pillows to her chest.

Damien smiled. "I was beginning to think you weren't spending the night in here."

"That is what I like to call, crazy talk." Alexander set up their sleeping bags, and Delia tossed the pillows to him.

"Come on in, Milo."

The other dogs lay outside Damien's door, but Milo sat in the hall looking at Delia.

"It's okay. Sometimes Damien's dog sleeps in here, sometimes not, but tonight you can come in." Alexander had come over to encourage Milo, but he only looked from one sibling to the other.

Suddenly Milo's head jerked and he slowly began slinking his way into the room, as if Damien's silent invitation would be revoked on a moment's notice, but Alexander bent down.

"There is no slinking and crawling in this house. This is a house of God...we are all Satan's offspring here and in this house, that means pride."

"That house was bad Milo, but that's over now, so from now on, it's head held high and shoulder's back...or whatever that equivalent is in dog terms."

Alexander patted the corner of Damien's king size bed. Milo paused, then jumped up and curled up, taking up as little space as was possible. "The dogs are hardly ever allowed to sleep up with Damien, so you are a very lucky pup."

"But regardless, there's no snuggling; father doesn't snuggle the puppies, so if you want to cuddle, you'll have to sleep down with me and Xander." Delia sat on the bed beside the dog, who licked her hand, but relaxed and closed his eyes. "Good choice, Milo."

"Still up for that movie?"

"Sure, we'll get everything."

The twins took off downstairs, with Delia popping bags of popcorn, while Alexander brought other snacks and drinks upstairs. Once the popcorn was done, they joined their father in his room, and got settled. While the other dogs were fine sleeping and relaxing out in the hall, Gojira whined to be let in, the scent of the buttered popcorn too much for him to handle.

"Come on, Goji." Her dog settled on the floor next to Delia, getting showered with popcorn every once in a while.

One movie turned into two, and by three in the morning, all the Thorns were ready to call it a night. Alexander went to his father, first.

"Goodnight, D-man."

"You know I love you, Xander."

"Yes, you tell us all the time; we aren't deprived of your love, but feel free to keep telling us, we don't mind...and as always, I know you love me more." He made a gun with his fingers, fired it at his father, then made his way to his sleeping bag.

"Goodnight, daddy." Delia held on to Damien not wanting to let go of her father.

"I shouldn't have to tell you this, Deedle, but you are no mistake."

Alexander had looked over. Clearly, Delia had said something to Damien.

"I know."

The tone in her voice suggested otherwise, but now was not the time to deal with it.

"I love you. Goodnight, both of you and I'll see you in the morning, or whenever you get up." Damien leaned over and turned off the light.

Delia joined her brother on the floor and soon the both of them heard sniffing and the panting of another dog; Hugo had been given the go ahead to sleep in the room. Hugo and Gojira made their way to their respective masters, and in the silence and tranquillity of their home, and with the safety of their father, the Thorn twins fell asleep.


End file.
